Acting on file management feedback

As we approach our next public milestone, we will begin to circle back to topics we covered in the blog and talk about the changes we’ve made to the product since the Developer Preview. As we’ve said often, we read the comments, newsgroup discussions, and reviews that have been written about Windows 8 and track the feedback carefully. We listen to this feedback by taking into account the source of the feedback and factoring in the intended audience for features as well as trying to reconcile conflicting feedback (no matter how many thumbs up votes there might be, we can promise that, for any design worth discussing, there are conflicting and equally valid points of view). Of course, we always consider the engineering feasibility of any changes we make—compatibility, security, performance, and so on.

Ilana Smith, a lead program manager on the Engineering System team, authored this post.

Those posts prompted great discussion and we read the approximately 2200 comments you left. This was wonderful feedback for us, and, along with information from our other feedback channels, we incorporated it into our design process.

Summarizing blog post comments

As we prepare for the beta, we thought we would update you on some of the key issues, and the changes you should expect to see.

Conflict: identifying duplicate files during conflict resolution

In Windows 8, we have a new experience for selecting the right file when file name collisions are encountered during a copy or move.

L. Brown said:

A compare button to show if files are equal in the "Choose" dialog would be really great!

Frequently, the reason two files have the same name is because they’re copies. Making a choice between two identical files is usually pointless – it’s unnecessary for a copy operation, and often unnecessary for a move operation. We looked at several methods of identifying duplicate files and decided that checking the file name, file size and date modified attributes was the most effective approach. They can be used to identify the vast majority of duplicate files quickly, efficiently, and with good backward compatibility compared to other methods like file hashes.

In the beta, we’ve added a new option to the detailed conflict resolution dialog. By checking the box in the bottom left of the dialog, you can filter out all files that match on name, size (down to the byte) and time (down to the granularity of the file system timestamp: 2 seconds for FAT, 100 nanoseconds for NTFS). The system will skip copying or moving these files. This functionality adds no additional time to the operation, works both locally and across networks, and on all types of systems and storage.

We’ll skip copying files with the same name, date, and size

This check box is deselected by default (to ensure users opt into the changed behavior), but it persists once you select it.

Copy: system changes

JL asked:

You know when you start a big copy job and realize that you are doing it over the wireless so you grab a network cable and plug it in? Does the file copy know to utilize the faster connection now?

If both sides of the copy operation are on Windows 8 machines, yes, it will be able to take advantage of the increased network throughput on the fly, thanks to advancements in the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol to support multiple channels.

Tobi asked:

Will it be possible to pause the copy operation and resume it after reboot/sleep/hibernate?

In the beta, when a system sleeps or hibernates, the copy operation will automatically pause, and when the machine wakes, you can choose to resume the copy by clicking the depressed pause button. (We decided not to have copies automatically resume on wake, as the system environment may have changed significantly in the interim and we do not want to cause an error.)

Copy: handling confirmations and interrupts

gawicks asked:

Please please display all the copy ‘error dialogs’ after the copying has completed so I don’t have to sit in front of the machine all the time.

We have two types of user interaction that can occur during a copy job – we break these into two groups, “confirmations” and ”interrupts.” Confirmations like “Are you sure you want to permanently delete this file?” need to be completed before the copy operation can start. Interrupts are issues that the system encounters while copying, things like “File not found,” “File in use,” and file name conflicts.

The system presents all confirmations before it starts to move or copy files. While copying, any interrupt issues are queued and presented once the system has completed all the work it can. In the beta, we’ve made improvements in how confirmations are presented, making sure they don’t get lost amongst existing running copies.

Explorer: navigation pane scrolling issue

Explorer: respect picture orientation metadata

Raf asked

Will you support *lossless* picture rotation?

In Windows 7 and 8, JPEG rotation is lossless when both image dimensions are divisible by 16 (standard image sizes).

Additionally, Explorer now respects EXIF orientation information for JPEG images. If your camera sets this value accurately, you will rarely need to correct orientation. Look for a future blog post where we will discuss this in more detail.

Images in Windows 7 Explorer

Images in Windows 8 Explorer

Explorer: Overlay changes to improve performance

In Windows 8, we continue to prioritize great performance. We pay close attention to milliseconds of lag and look for reductions. In Explorer, we found an opportunity for improvement in delays caused by icon overlays.

In Windows 7, we have a padlock icon overlay to indicate a private file. (You might recall that, due to the increase in shared files, it had superseded the ”palm up” overlay for shared files.) We recently found that checking for these overlays was adding about 120 milliseconds to our Explorer library launch tests. This might not seem like much, but we consider this a big delay.

Overlays have limitations – they can only show a single state, add a lot of visual noise, and can be confusing. The padlock overlay has been removed; this information is conveyed better by the “Sharing status” column.

This column has these advantages:

Performance: The column is hidden by default, so the delay is incurred only when you opt into showing this information.

Tri-state: This column has three values: Shared, Not shared, and Private, so you get more detail than you would from the icon overlay.

Sorting/filtering: You can sort and filter the sharing status property, providing more powerful file management capabilities.

Explorer: pin to Start

Half of the items in my Windows 7 Start Menu are shortcuts to folders and one is to a file […] How can I do this in Windows 8 if the start screen won’t allow shortcuts for folders?

In the beta, you can now easily pin your favorite folders to Start, and take advantage of the rich customization functionality that we built into it to arrange the folders into groups and into any order you want.

"Pin to Start" from the Windows Explorer ribbon

Additionally, just as in Windows 7, you can pin shortcuts to executables to Start directly from Windows Explorer, which can be very useful for applications that don’t add themselves to the Start screen by default.

Explorer: PowerShell

Jamie Thomson said:

Really liking the "Open Command prompt" option in the File menu however I prefer to use PowerShell so would like an "Open PowerShell prompt" option too.

We agree, and so we added this as well. It is worth noting that there are sometimes conflicting points of view on whether advanced things should be in the GUI or in PowerShell, and how front and center they should be. We are always balancing the complexity of too many options and too many ways to do things. As you can see, there is no right answer, so we’ll continue to balance these complex choices.

Windows PowerShell buttons in Windows Explorer

These menu items launch the PowerShell console. The PowerShell ISE continues to be available from the Edit command on a PowerShell file.

Explorer: ribbon changes

We had expected the introduction of the ribbon to Explorer to spur conversation, and it is fair to say the voluminous response was in line with our expectations. It’s exciting to work on something that brings so many different perspectives.

There were many reactions, and as we expected, there is a set of people who have an entirely negative reaction to the affordance and have been telling us about it in no uncertain terms. Our view is that we do need to move the user interface forward and accept that a vocal set of customers are just not happy with the direction we’re going. When looked at broadly, that is balanced out by a majority of people who are happy and more productive with the changes. We remind folks that there are third-party tools available (likely the tools being used by this set of people), that provide a number of different interface paradigms. We do embrace the notion that third-party tools play an important part in the Windows experience.

That said, we’ve internalized your feedback, experimented with and tested various approaches, and used our co-workers as test subjects, in addition to the formal testing as you would expect. You’ll see three major changes in the ribbon in the beta.

Ribbon minimized by default: With the ribbon maximized in the Developer Preview, we’ve been able to learn a lot about how people interact with it, which has enabled us to tweak and fine-tune it. With the beta, we will be making a major change that brings Explorer in line with our design principles for Windows 8. As in our copy dialogs, Task Manager, and Metro style experiences, we will be reducing distractions and trusting users to discover functionality on their own, by minimizing the ribbon by default.

Windows Explorer ribbon minimized by default

We’ve tested this change for a while now, and the results have been heartening. This is data from internal usage at Microsoft, which we know not to be representative of broad audiences, but is generally representative of the folks like you that engage in the dialog on the blog.

This data shows that our very tech-savvy users are generally fine with either setting, but that our heavier Explorer users are our ribbon maximizers. For lighter file browsing scenarios, we can provide a UI with reduced distractions, and still trust that users who want to really exercise Explorer functionality will maximize and leverage the ribbon.

Visible hotkeys: Our telemetry data has shown us that for users who actively choose to minimize the ribbon, their strong preference is to use hotkeys. The ribbon provides new ways to access functionality via the keyboard with keytips (those floating cues that pop up when you hit Alt), but traditional shortcut keys like Ctrl+V remain the most efficient method. We love shortcut keys (internally, their usage gets up over 85% of all Explorer commands issued), so we want to help more people discover them.

For the beta release, we’ve added hotkey information to the tooltips of relevant buttons.

“New folder” tooltip shows the keyboard shortcut

User setting roaming: We want to make sure you only need configure your Explorer options once. If you maximize your ribbon, and add Undo and Map Network Drive in your Quick Access Toolbar, we want your Explorer to look like that every time.

For the beta release, we’ve added Explorer settings to the attributes that are roamed to your other Windows 8 PCs. In the “Sync your settings” UI, this shows up under “Other Windows settings.” (For more information about roaming user settings, take a look at Katie’s post.)

Syncing Explorer settings across PCs

We really appreciate all your feedback on our previous posts. We believe it has contributed directly to an improved file management experience for Windows 8.

Please, increase the icon size of folders pinned to start menu. Seriously, all those big tiles with huge icons and a folder with a 16×16 (or 32×32, I'm not sure) resolution looks awful. It's totally out of balance with the rest of the UI in general.

1. Please do another post about the Metro UI and Metro-style applications soon (specifically, a response to feedback and not a news update). I must say, the Metro-style UI elements shown in this post look terrible next the beautiful Windows Aero design.

2. You're minimizing the Ribbon by default? That's an interesting decision. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I can almost guarantee that I will maximize the Ribbon as soon as I open an Explorer window and will never use it minimized. I never really thought Menu Tabs (blogs.msdn.com/…/676371.aspx) were any better than simply using the Ribbon in its normal state.

A feature I really want to see before final release, is dragging and dropping on to sub-folders within the explorer breadcrumb bar.

Windows 8 has added the ability to drag and drop to the primary directories, on the breadcrumb bar. It would be nice if you could drag to the arrows for each primary directory, thus revealing the menu, and allowing dropping on any of these sub-folders. These would give a powerful method to move/copy folders between directories extremely quickly.

Now for the visual style… I wish the classic desktop theme was silver/grey as in Office and that the contextual ribbon tabs would use the same style as Office. The Office 2010 ones blend nicely into title bar, the W8 ones are just colored buttons.

Please, increase the icon size of folders pinned to start menu. Seriously, all those big tiles with huge icons and a folder with a 16×16 (or 32×32, I'm not sure) resolution looks awful. It's totally out of balance with the rest of the UI in general…………………….

I agree with Breno Ferreira and Megazone75

A overall look of a OS is very important to a normal consumer at this point. People go for the looks of a device or a OS. So please make those changes.

Please allow us to paste a path from the clipboard or drag a path their from another explorer window into a FoldeBrowserDialog instead of having to tediously navigate to it, particularly when it's nested so deep on on some network resource that is not simple to navigate to.

Right click support for folders in the breadcrumb toolbar and pressing F2 function key twice will highlight not only the filename but the extension as well for when you want to rename document.txt to something like document.xml

Reviews of OnLive Desktop show how good the Ribbon interface is. The reviews have commented that it is easy to use the ribbon with a touch-first interface, as is found on the iPad. I personally love the ribbon now that I'm used to it and so does my wife. However, and this is CRITICALLY important, ALL application functions must be available SOMEWHERE on the ribbon. In Excel 2010 if you want to modify the PivotTable you have to add the wizard button to your quick access toolbar. That is the antithesis of discoverable. I've run in to this several times in several Office applications and it is completely unacceptable.

I understand the need to balance power with simplicity, but even power users expect to be able to eventually find something. Burying a function such that it is no longer accessible to the user is crazy. As it is with a PivotTable the ribbon is already extended when the PivotTable is active. Extend it by 1, 2, even 5 more tabs to fit all the features, just don't make me dig through that awful list of items and add it to my QAT just to use it.

I haven't used Windows 8 much, but if there are ANY features that are available that I can only access via the QAT (or right-click for that matter) that really needs to be fixed. Remote controlling a Windows PC from a tablet is not unusual, and will likely become more common. The ribbon is great for that, but the QAT isn't and there is no right-click with my fingers.

Please, increase the icon size of folders pinned to start menu. Seriously, all those big tiles with huge icons and a folder with a 16×16 (or 32×32, I'm not sure) resolution looks awful. It's totally out of balance with the rest of the UI in general…………………….

I agree with Breno Ferreira and Megazone75

A overall look of a OS is very important to a normal consumer at this point. People go for the looks of a device or a OS. So please make those changes.

I really like the improvements, but is it possible that you can customize the navigation button colour. For example when you change your Aero colour in green, that the navigation buttons also get the green colour for the buttons, but all over the system. (In Explorer, IE and so on, everywhere they appear)

Or that Desktop IE and Explorer uses the same navigation buttons, instead of two different styles of buttons.

About the icon overylays. I find the overlays to be a good idea. I can quickly see the status of a folder or file if color and/or pattern is involved. Even more helpful is that my eye doesn't have to travel from the folder name to collect this information. I can assure you that it takes more than 120 milliseconds for a human to trace a line to the right-side to see if a folder is shared or not.

However, I'm sympathetic to the reasoning's you've mentioned here. It would be nice if I could narrow a given state field (be it binary, tri-state, or more) to a single character wide field and have it change to a symbol that is quick and easy to see. I could mouse over the symbol to see what it means. I could move the column to the left of the folder so my eye doesn't have to travel far. I could still sort it or expand it to get all the information and uses that you've mentioned here. For power-users it would be a short time before these new icons had meanings that would be memorized, much like ARSH (archive, read-only, system, hidden) are just a single character-width icon and it conveys a whole lot of information. For basic users, they'd never have to know the feature existed.

As an example of what I'm talking about, imagine there were no folder icons at all. All you saw was a name and you had to look all the way to the right to see if it was a folder or a file or what type of file it was. That would be a huge step backwards. Indeed, having icons with color and shape convey a whole lot of information quickly and in very little space.

I got excited when I saw the start screen image labeled "MoGo-tile" because it looks very much like the windows phone 7 start screen with its two columns of icons, but alas the aspect ratio was not right for 480×800, unless you cropped the original… *tinfoil hat time!* lol, just kidding, you probably just cropped a picture of the full start screen, but we can dream right?

I agree with the comments on the Aero-style icons really looking out of place on the Metro start screen. Either you go Metro or you don't – but please don't try to mix and match. It does not work.

And yes, the ribbon needs an overhaul (preferably a whole new Metro look, but at least use the Office 2010 ribbon, it looks so much nicer).

That being said, these improvements here are very nice. I especially like the fact that Windows (and Windows Media Center, I hope) *finally* will respect EXIF rotation information. That is only about 10 years late…

Otherwise, keep up the good work. Windows 8 is great – especially performance-wise. I am, however, still skeptical about the curious mix of Aero and Metro. And I am even more skeptical about the idea of running application forcibly full-screen on my 24-inch monitor. That it like going back to Windows 1.0. It works nicely on a tablet, but it does not – and never will – work on a desktop computer. Metro apps need to run in windows – after that is why i run Windows.

Please make the built-in file search much more faster (even without indexing) than it's in Windows 7 – sometimes when I search a certain file, I remember sooner the file location than W7 finds it by name. Also support easy file content search so I don't need to use TC instead of built-in search. Thanks for all VS developers 🙂

"We remind folks that there are third-party tools available (likely the tools being used by this set of people), that provide a number of different interface paradigms. We do embrace the notion that third-party tools play an important part in the Windows experience."

If Microsoft are embracing the concept of third-party file managers, please add proper APIs and hooks so that alternative tools can be associated with the folder file type and all the APIs which may launch a folder, the same as a web browser can be set as the default and launch all URLs and HTML files/links.

It should be as easy and reliable to do this as it is to make IE or Firefox your default web browser. (As it is, it requires a lot of research, rule-bending and heuristics to get things to work well, and a hell of a lot to get things to work really well, e.g. supporting SHOpenFolderAndSelectItems properly takes a lot of voodoo.)

Similarly, the taskbar (and start-menu) folder-pinning, at least in Windows 7, provides no way for alternative file managers to be used as the default.

And, as far as I can tell, there is also no documented way to provide a launcher which properly opens documents with their associated apps while adding the documents to said apps' automatic recent-items Jump List (since even if you can reliably work out which program was launched for a document, there is no documented way to determine its AppUserModelID in the general case; e.g. for auto-generated IDs).

All of which is to not even mention UAC, which still (as of the Win8 DP at least) puts third-party file managers (and other alternative system tools) at a disadvantage compared to the built-in components, for no good reason.

Please give us ability to blacklist certain folders in Windows Libraries function. For example when I have folders A and B and both of them have subdirectories called A_thumbnails and B_Thumbnails, I'd like to include only the contents of the folder A and B and blacklist the thumbnail folders.

It would make also pretty good use when you don't want project related work-on-progress files included with certain libraries you're sharing over network for somebody else.

It would enable to have more meaningful libraries within Windows and offer some much needed organization features for libraries which at the moment is just a "collection of various content from various folders with all the scrap files included".

I agree with the comments above about the non-metro icons on the start screen. Obviously it is impractical (impossible really) to have all icons metro, but surely icons such as folders and other core Windows aspects likely to be pinned could contain a metro icon version.

Also as @Bastion92 said, having the explorer accent colour/theme match the metro theme would be a nice touch.

If there's one thing I'm torn on Windows 8, it's the Ribbon UI in Explorer. I wanna like it, but the way it is now, feels and looks cluttered. I'm hoping to see if you guys could streamline it a bit more.

This may just be me, but the "Skip 2 files with the same date and size" sounds like only 2 files will be skipped or that the next two will be skipped. That is seriously what I thought the first time I read it.

Please, replace that with "Skip files with the same date and size" or something along the lines of that. It is a lot less confusing (to me at least).

@Andrew.28 – keytips will appear for a minimized ribbon – selecting the tab keytip (e.g. H for the Home tab) will auto-expand the ribbon. IIRC, it should have worked that way in the Developer Preview too.

The pausing of file copies sounds like a great feature, will the same happen if the network becomes disconnected mid-copy? There's nothing worse than a temporary wifi drop-out killing a bunch of file copies and it would seem more common than having to sleep/hibernate mid-copy.

I don't have access to Windows 8 developer previews but one of the things that I would like (if it isn't already there) is to be able to middle click on a scrollbar and have it behave exactly as if you shift+left clicked on it (i.e. scroll to that location immediately). Middle clicking on the up and down buttons in the scrollbar should act as if you pushed ctrl+home and ctrl+end.

@AndyCadley – The experience for losing a network mid-copy hasn't really changed in Win8. We'll retry for a bit, and then if we're unsuccessful, we'll throw an error offering "Retry" or "Cancel". We can't actually pause in this circumstance, because we need access to both source and destination to capture enough information to make sure we resume the right copy (e.g. the right version of the right file, in the right place).

Personally windows 8 is a huge sloppy mess that needs a ton of improvement possibly the ability to right click and close an app on the metro screen, or a easier destop to metro transition I constantly accidentally would switch to the metro screen because of the removal of the regular start button

please, put back in the copy functions of win-XP..this win7 64 is garbaaage…i use my old sony machine for anything serrious…i use the win 7 64 system as an effective backup machine. the new comp with win 7 64bit…doubled my music and picture files…try to fix your ippod or Zune when that occurs..!!!…i never had any of this on my Vaio with Win XP…this crap seems to be a advertisement ploy…!.and Forgive Steve Jobs…i thought all these years that you were the only try to keep all knowledge to yourself…t r in Tennessee.

That is not the Word 2007 Ribbon interface. Word 2007 has a design that is a darker shade of blue and is more Aero-like. The Windows 8 Explorer uses the design from the Windows Live apps and the Windows 7 versions of WordPad and Paint. Also, Word 2007 has the Office button in the left-hand corner, which means that in a maximized window, the target area for the button extends all the way into the corner of the screen (important for Fitts' Law, but not present in any newer designs).

Will I be able to disable the start screen/metro and revert to a Windows 7 look and feel? I don't want anything to do with metro/start screen on my desktops and laptops…. tablets and phones only please

I also would like to see Jump lists or Recent Items in the start menu.

I use it all the time for Word documents, and I wouldn't want to pin everything to the taskbar.

Consider this experience:

– Press the Win Key

– Start typing 'Word'

– Right click

– Press a "Jump list" / "Recent" button in the bottom command bar

– Select a file from a metro-style popup menu

I believe this comfortably fits within the Metro style design, and will even increase the usage of the jump lists, as this can be used with any app in the start menu (not just pinned apps like in Win7)

@Ilana Smith – MSFT: // "Pin to taskbar" is available in the ribbon on the Application tab //

Yes, but how can we pin folders or libraries to the taskbar? Right now, if I drag folder or library to the taskbar it pins it to the Explorer jump list instead. I want to pin it to the taskbar, not to the Explorer jump list.

If this is implemented, I would create a library containing

C:UsersvladncAppDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStart Menu

and

C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart Menu

then pin this library to the taskbar.

Or Microsoft could just stop trolling us with the Start Screen, and give us the Windows 7 start menu, as an option.

I would like to have one more options. Something good so we could organize our all files, folders very quick and good.

For example, my main problem is there is too much files. When I download something from internet It will be good to move file exactly where it should be. Most browser put all files in "download" folder, and in the end you have million of files and there is no way to organize them… Also programs that use "save" file options, sometimes have old version of "windows", and similar, so the left side "Libraries" folder can't help you..

Also only way to organize folder quick is this "Libraries" folder, but sometimes you just don't get it how to add folders to Libraries location.

Also, if you have much sub-folders, you can't save your file in right location with one click, you will sometimes when you just not in the "mood" to select right location..or you don't have time to think about that because you have doing too other thing in the moment.

So what I was asking is something like:

– quick and easy to save files on right folder/location

– some kind of priority folder/files, so if you downloaded or saved word document, and you know you will need this week or something.. so you could search for that "important" document,even if you don't know where is it saved.

I know you can search files over "search" box, and filtering by "date" and similar, but I don't thing that's it. I think there should be better solution.

I have similar question about bookmarks, Is it possible that windows store and synchronise all bookmarks with all browsers that you have on you computer? That's good question I think 🙂

Perhaps I should expand on my last comment, I love the Ribbon UI in Office and WLE, but here on the desktop Explorer, I think it needs to be more attractive looking. I'm not sure how I'll feel looking at a bland set of icons day after day, also why does it not utilize the AERO glass?

Thanks for the transparency. Keep up the great work Microsoft. Please keep up the communication as well. Windows 7 was totally out in the open from the Beta on, hopefully the Windows 8 Vei will be lifted soon.

Internet Explorer "Save Picture As" always defaults to Library root directory. This makes it very inefficient to save multiple images out, as you have to navigate back to intended directory, with each save operation – or pin the folder to navigation pane, or copy and paste directory into breadcrumb bar. Other browsers such as Chrome, remember the save folder, in between save commands.

Additionally it would be nice if IE explorer (save window) automatically detected existing duplicate file names in current directory, and applied a number padding, to insure a unique filename. Thus if a web page had many images called untitled, the images would become untitled 01, untitled 02, untitled 03, etc. Without the user needing to manually change the filename.

I know this is somewhat unrelated to the topic at hand. But they have been rumours that you wont allow users to customize the metro start screen with pictures of their choosing. This may seem minimal but it matters to avereage users. I change my desktop start screen weekly. And id want that option on the metro start screen. Give the users the choice.If the pictures are overstretched and low resolution people will switch back to the ugly circle square background. Android users have the option to customize their background and it works. So should windows 8 users. And i would love to have the option of creating live wallpaper for the metro start screen.Im sure if you enable such a feature, developers would work on it.

Office 15 is coming so I hope you and your team would work with Office division to make future of Windows and office a unified experience.

As some comments said, we do indeed need the to have some UI enchantments at later development progress. For instance: the blueish color of the ribbon which is not customizable. I expect it to feature somewhat transparency similar to the ribbon in Office 2010 so it will make the explorer look slimmer and prettier.

For my own suggestion, I would like to see running app tile (desktop and metro) to be highlighted (glowed) so users will easy recognize them.

Explorer could use a better way of displaying the metadata in tagged movie files, Its fine for mp3 files but i fond myself having to manually resize the details plane to see the movies synopsis and manually add the "year" item to the folder's view properties.

Second arranging the files using metadata is fast on the server side (with indexing enabled) and on x86 windows but painfully slow on x64 due the restrictions on indexing network locations added in windows 7 (partially addressed in the patch for x86 versions)

Finally i hope to hear more about the fate of media player & center in future the first is in dire need of a complete rebuild.

It was pointed out that the ribbon bar ends up being totally inconsistent, and indeed poor if you really dare to talk about touch interfacing. You feel you have to move the UI on, depite being told by many core people you are wrong and I have no problem telling you that its wrong, its poor, it doesn't work.

But.. then the same applies to Metro. And a host of other things. Whats new? Windows 8 is all about rubbing our noses in it and telling us that 'despite' what we think, you're moving on without us. Be careful what you wish for.

First, I have to agree with the first comment. The tiles for folders should contain much more info than the icons. Maybe a live preview of folder content??

Second, since you didn't tell anything in this regard, I should ask again, please, please add a smart queue to the file copy experience. I mean, if the copy jobs don't conflict with each other, they should run simultenously, otherwise they should be in a queue to maximize performance. Teracopy and many other 3rd party apps are doing it but why shouldn't Windows do it? Mac OSX doesn't do it either. This should be good bragging point for MSFT. I hope you add this functionality.

As for the rest of the changes, I wish to thank you for all the great work and the care you put through these changes.

The Metro Applications on the Start Screen have their own stylized tiles. But normal shortcuts doesn't. So my suggestion is: make the predominant color of the shortcut icon, to be the color of the shortcut tile, exactly like on the Windows 7 Taskbar when you hover your mouse over a open program. This would make a nice contrast on the Start Screen, making the "Classic" Windows Programs to appear more fitting in the Metro Experience. Also, if the Program have a higher resolution icon, use it instead of this really small one as seen in the screenshots.

And I would be really happy if you make a option to change the icon of the shortcuts directly in the Metro Experience using a new "Metro pane" (Like the network one) or something like that (Please don't make just a option that throws me back at the desktop with that old change icon dialog box).

I suggest the team to redraw some new icons that more fitting with metro especially for some dated application or file in system32 like regedit since it looks really old. I believe this would not be a big deal for design team.

One idea is to change the look to match the metro style. or simply just the icons (mainly the back,forward and up).

other ideas is not related to the subject but i feel the need to say them anyway 🙂

One is to make the start screen continuous with the desktop, meaning that the desktop background will be the same as the start screen's. So tiles can appear and the task-bar and icons will disappear and vice versa while switching. and this will look like a more consistent approach rather than 2 separate modes!

Also when the hardware requirements were mentioned, there was a substitution to the Alt+ Ctr + Del by hardware buttons on tablets. Great! but how about print screen?? it's quiet important for many ppl so please have a hardware shortcut for that! 🙂

I really hope this is in the works. I was disappointed that in the Developer Preview, I couldn't post have two web pages sitting next to each other in Metro–I had to either use the Desktop IE or a split between Metro IE and the Desktop, with Desktop IE open.

To me, this is really problematic and is likely to drive a lot of users out of Metro and onto the desktop. We need to be able to reference one item in an app while working in another, without having to leave the cool new Metro interface. This seems like a no brainier to me, but I've been unable to find anything about it the addition of this feature online, so I'm concerned, and hope this is being addressed. I love the Metro and want to be able to stay in it as much as possible.

I agree with Breno Ferreira, non-metro applications would look better with the 64×64 icon centered and the small text to the bottom left like the other tiles. It'll still be set apart by the fact it uses a non-metro icon and a generic background gradient.

Congratulations to MSFT for this dialog and making changes to what bloggers are saying about the exciting product.

JumpList from Windows 7 must continue in Windows 8. The panel used for "charms" can be customisable to pin the applications. We don't need to pin every file/folder that we use very frequently. Otherwise, the starts screen will just look bad and cluttered.

So ones the application such as Word 2010 is pinned to "charms panel". Ones use click/touch on the icon then the JumpList will present and I think it will de-clutter the wonderful start screen with Live Tiles.

On the flipside, if JumpList isn't being conntinued then Start Screen must allow to group the pinned shortcuts. There are groups already but this are grouped within groups. However, this sub-grouping should only be done for non-live tiles (tiles where info not being updated – similar to iOS and Android).

Looking forward to Beta/ConsumerPreview by end of February; hopefully before it.

In the Advanced File Copy Conflicts dialog box, I think it would be better to have the two main checkboxes ("Files from Edits" & "Files already in My Pictures") at the bottom of the screen, closer to the OK button.

Perhaps there could also be an option for the ribbon to maximise when the mouse hovers over it, similar to the 'Auto-hide Start Menu option'.

+1 for the feedback to increase the size of folder icons in the Start Screen.

Other than that, it's looking ok for now. Have you decided to give us desktop users our Windows 7 style Start Menu back yet?

2. Ability to search for file contents with a string in any file type, regardless of extension, as it was in XP, without a need for a specific iFilter to be installed. For example, if we search for the word "Microsoft" within local drive C, each and every file that contains matching string would shows up in Search Result, be it *.EXE, *DLL, *.TXT, or whatever extension it is.

One particular thing I will point out and hope devs read this: While I love the new changes and additions to the file management in Win8, particularly the file transfers need huge improvement. It has slowly improved over time. XP was REAL basic, Windows 7 added some but not much. I have long since switched to using a program called Teracopy for all of my file transfers. Look into it. The vast amount of options are insanely useful and practically neeeded. Would be nice to see much of this integrated in Win8. Do it like 7. Have the basic view up first but offer a 'View More' button or 'Advanced Options'.

I would consider combining the "Open command prompt" and "Open Windows PowerShell" menus into a single menu (e.g. "Open command shell") to reduce clutter. They are both advanced tools that serve a similar purpose.

That’s a lot of valuable improvements. Good work and great post! And, by the way, those two display buttons at bottom right are simply wonderful. But there are a lot more improvements yet to be made, as many others pointed out.

– Easy connection to cloud services (at least, to SkyDrive!).

– Access to File History directly from the ribbon (make this awesome feature more visible).

– Folder size in Size column.

– Option to hide libraries.

– Faster file search.

– Ribbon visual style.

– Multiple selection in the Navigation Pane.

– All suggestions of Braden Jennings!

– Icon size on live tiles. — Honestly, I would rather prefer smaller tiles since a lot of those live tiles will be dead tiles. However, I understand those big tiles are Microsoft’s new image… Same problem on my Windows Phone: out of some 80 pinned tiles, only 7 are usefully “live”. All others are simply a waste of space.

I agree with many others such as Ferreira, Megazone75, Prince, and Garth. The small icons for desktop applications pinned on the start screen need to be updated or at least made larger. The do really detract from the look of the start screen the way the currently are.

I understand the desire to make the metro apps stand out from the desktop ones but at least you could give an option to increase the icon size up to around the "Large icons" size of the desktop icons. That would allow the existing icons to fill the majority of the square and make them look less out of place.

Please implement a way to see the size of an entire folder in the size column of the Windows Explorer when in detailed view mode. At present we can see the file size but a folder size is always blank. This is very helpful for System Admins when they are managing the disks and quickly look at the size of the folders without going to their property (Now as a developer I can understand that this is may not be very efficient but it can be done on a sub thread which gets terminated as soon as user moved away from the folder and have a minimal impact.)

Also, it would be very handy to have advanced renaming functionality which allows users to select multiple files and rename them with a Pattern, RegEx etc…

Why do I need to click and hold on the nav bar at the bottom of the start screen in order to scroll left or right? There is a ton of unused green background as part of the metro start screen that I feel like I should be able to just click and drag on to scroll left or right to view more icons. I am assuming that when touch is enabled that you will be able to touch that area and drag your finger left or right but for some reason you do not allow the same functionality with a mouse.

Please allow left clicking and holding on any part of the background of the start screen to enable scrolling the start screen left or right. Preferably with reversed controls from dragging the nav bar (so that clicking the background and dragging left moves the screen right).

When we have a look on the start screen, we will find that the styles between [apps] and [programs(and folders, etc)] are different. A shortcut to a [program] is displayed with little icon and "enormous" font, make it hard to avoid "…" before we can see what the program really is.

Why not try to make them similar? We need resizable tiles, renamable name and large icons (now that most programs provide larger icons), as with groups with tags, I think the start screen will be better!

– Copy path adds quotation marks, if this path is copied and pasted back into breadcrumb bar, Internet explorer opens, please make Explorer ignore quotation marks, and continue to specified directory. Thus user does not need to remove quotation marks for this purpose.

– Allowing any folder to be pinned directly to taskbar, would be great

– Allow preview pane to be dismissed by a swipe to the right (removing the need for the ribbon)

– Allow navigation pane to be dismissed by a swipe to the right (removing the need for the ribbon)

– Allow ribbon to expand & collapse, by swiping up & down anywhere in the general proximity of the ribbon

– Will we ever be able to scrub video in realtime in Windows Media Player (in 2012 with powerful hardware), is their some limitation, that makes this impossible in WMP. Quicktime enables scrubbing video/audio

should stay visible. Currently each time you press this shortcut it dismisses the chrome. It would be nice to use these hotkeys multiple times to navigate through the tabs, until you select the one you want

This might be a little off-topic, but I wish they would develop and release Windows in a way that Paul Thurrott suggested in a recent Windows Weekly episode: To have a core Windows team which is responsible for all the low-level stuff (HAL, kernel, etc.), let's call it the Windows foundation or "MinWin", and then have two distinct teams that are responsible for the individual user experiences built on top of it: one that is for "consumers" (which, for example, utilizes the Metro-shell) and one for "business/power-users" (which utilizes the Desktop and represents the platform to create consumer-style applications).

Metro works great on tablets/touch-first devices. I don't see business users that are using primary desktop applications on a laptop or desktop computer without touch spending much time in this interface. The point is: Professional applications, developer tools for example, cannot become Metro-style applications (at least not at the moment) because of two reasons: 1.) the current limitations of the Windows Runtime (sandboxed applications, no direct file system access, etc.), and 2.) business-specific applications that are not designed for the public (the Windows Store) but cannot deployed otherwise.

I wish they created one version of Windows for tablets/touch-first-devices, and one for businesses, and not this strange mixture of both worlds that we are getting with Windows 8.

I second Braden Jennings' suggestion about direct-pinning folders to the taskbar. The jumplist works, but it'd be really convenient to have each individual folder you want pinned as well.

Also, something that really bugs me about Explorer is the lack of "smooth scrolling", even with a Touch Mouse. The smooth scrolling works everywhere else, so it's really startling to scroll line-by-line in Explorer, and destroys the fluid experience when dealing with large thumbnails like images.

awesome post, just a question abt copy and pasting, imagine i have a number of files to be copied to another drive/partition. right now all the file copying starts at once, i would prefer to have them wait in a queue unless specified, just like teracopy , so that my file copies at maximum speed, instead of all being transfered at the same time.

Very pleased to hear that the WIC JPEG decoder has been fixed to respect the EXIF rotation flag. Until now I've had to rely on the excellent FastPictureViewer Codec Pack to provide this basic functionality.

Like everyone else here, I'm really holding out for an updated visual style for the Windows Ribbon. Both Office 2007's and Office 2010's implementations are much nicer to look at.

In Windows 7, 'Open command window here' is missing from the extended context menu in Library folders. This makes sense when in the root of a library, but in other cases I wish Windows were intelligent enough to be able to open a command prompt at equivalent appropriate physical location.

Off-topic, but I'd love to see some improvement in the interaction between the desktop and metro apps. I've been using Windows 8 as my main PC and I have to say I love the "Start Screen" as an application launcher and I also really like metro apps.

However I think it's difficult to switch between the desktop and metro apps at the moment. If this doesn't improve I'm not sure I'll be able to find a way to use metro apps day-to-day on my desktop/laptop.

Unfortunately I'm not sure what the solution to this is. Perhaps allowing metro app to be pinned to the task bar and/or allowing metro apps to run in a window on the desktop would work better. Once metro apps are maximised and/or launched from the Start Screen they should work exactly as they do now.

Please also implement this feature for video files that have an orientation mapping as well (e.g., h.264, m-jpeg, etc.), and the ability to rotate video from within Explorer (losslessly by changing the orientation value where applicable).

I want drag and drop of selected text for directly act like copy-paste everywhere in windows explorer and between all software just like in Google chrome. It would be very nice if i don't have to ctrl+c ctrl+v every time in copying text from one program to another

Even if they do what you ask for and redo all the folder, libraries and .exe icons of built-in Windows applications to be more Metro-like on the start screen (which I would also support), what about all the 3rd party programs and executables? If you pin them to the start screen, they would still look out of place with their 3d perspective design (which is/was one of the Microsoft guidelines for creating application icons, by the way).

I think a more general solution would be to make them use bigger .png to fill more space in the tile (and live the icon itself to the lower left corner of the tile so that it could still be still distinguished from metro apps). I agree that right now those tiles with Desktop applications look very unappealing, but as I said remaking icons for windows' own .exe's is not a solution. So, please consider using larger icons at least (if they are available for that particular executable).

@ everyone who wants folder size in explorer

Go to the folder with a large number of small files (you can use C:Windows if you don't have anything like that) and open its Properties. Count how long it takes to poll all the files in that folder and subfolders to calculate the size. Do you want the same many-seconds delay every time you open some folder in Windows Explorer?

@MSFT

Will there be a Theme (visual style) for Desktop that would be consistent with Metro design philosophy? Right now, as many others have said, Metro and Desktop UIs feel very disjointed. The least that could be done is a theme / visual style for Desktop.

I would like to have a Theme that would make my Desktop windows look more in line with Metro style (flat, without gradients and 3D effects, glassy effects, etc.).

This is how windows 8 should really be: windowsitpro.com/blog/supersite-blog-39/windows8/doesnt-windows-8-141886 Metro apps should appear in the taskbar and should be allowed to run in window mode not only in fullscreen. Otherwise i really love what you did so far and can't wait to play with the Beta version.

It is great that you are listening to the feedback here. You can get even more feedback if you look at some really good Explorer alternatives that are out there. This will tell you what users are really really missing. Some of the bes alternives are:

– Multi Branch View. Quickly view the complete contents of two or more folders in one list. These folders can even be in totally different locations.

– Assign more than 1 application as default application and open the file with preferred application by keyboard shortcut. So user could easily switch application with shortcut instead of "Open with" dialog.

I agree with Keith about the background. Users should be given the option to choose their ow backgrounds for the metro starts screen. If overstretching the image is a problem. Why not have the tiles glide over the background picture. This seems like a step back from windows 7. You say your product is about the user, then give the users the option to fully customize their computer to their own liking.

And why not include the close x button on the metro styled apps. It could be a hidden button that only appears when users hover toward the top right screen. It seems less tedious than dragging an app downwards.

Also i hope there's more and i am sure there is about multifunctionality. There should be an easier way to switch between apps rather than swipping from the left constantly. But as i mention in the previous post, give users the freedom to customize the metro start screen. That includes the background picture. It may seem a small issue to you but its a step back to consumers who are used to it in previous versions of windows

Will Windows 8 support future multitouch trackpads for PCs that support gestures? The one thing I feel MacOS and Apple-hardware really excels at is an excellent trackpad and gesture integration. I hope that when this becomes standard for PCs as well, Windows 8 will support it from day one natively.

I also hope that the open file-dialog window will be enhanced. I want to drag and drop shortcuts under "desktop", "libraries", "computer", and "network". Also I would like to (as mention by another) drag and drop what I want to open inside the dialog to automatically show the parent folder and autoselect the file.

I hope that "msconfig" gets a makeover as well. Not being able to resize a windows with long paths is for me not very smart. I also hope that this configuration tool will be made more available so even my mother will know how to make her computer start faster. This may be redundant in Windows 8, I don't know.

To clarify: All of a file's metadata can be edited through the file's properties, on the Details tab. However, only a select number of metadata fields are available for editing in the Details Pane directly. For example, I cannot directly edit the Title and Number of a song from the Details Pane and so I have to open the file's properties, whilst I can directly edit the Album name and Artist. Please make it possible for users to be able to choose which fields are available for editing in the Details Pane, or, at least add some popular fields like song title and number.

I was really hoping to see option for tabs and maybe a split view in windows explorer. I mean, please, why someone needs to have open two or more explorer windows if there could be tabs? It was the same with IE, you were scared of tabs till the end when practically all other browsers had them.

The tiny (desktop) icons in Metro look pretty terrible, I hope all of the Out of Box icons in Win8 are super high definition and that you require any application that gets the Windows Certified logo provides a super high definition icon. It would just make the Metro + Desktop experience THAT much more seamless and every little thing to make those two things seamless would go a great deal!

"There is a ton of unused green background as part of the metro start screen that I feel like I should be able to just click and drag on to scroll left or right to view more icons. I am assuming that when touch is enabled that you will be able to touch that area and drag your finger left or right but for some reason you do not allow the same functionality with a mouse"

Agreed, unless a left mouse click in this area performs some other action we are unaware of.

I also think the non-metro app live tiles need some serious work for them to add some additional value over just large squares of ugly icons – even android / ios icon grids look more appealing than these! Larger icons used where they exist or even previews of content – something to compliment the metro design!

Win 8 start screen should at least match the great polished look of Windows Phone!

I'm also hoping for drill-down apps/folders within each tile for metro in general 🙂

It's a limitation of the file system and your HDD speed. Folder structure is just Does any 3rd party Explorer replacement offer this functionality? No, because it cannot be done. Folder structure is just a table of contents to which files are linked through indexes or similarly. Without polling all the files on the same index, you can't calculate the size of the "folder", because folder is just a metaphor, it doesn't have size by itself.

If I make give a last minute tip it would be to increase the spacing in the task column and increase the checkboxes. Currently in the desktop app, these items are too small for the use of a finger in the touchscreen. It would be nice if there would be such a thing as toggle switch for touch usage where every button and item were optimized for touch use.

All of the changes in this blog post are solid improvements. A fine example of small changes making a big difference. I love the option to skip files during copy with the same date and size. There are far too many suggestions everyone including myself has with Windows Explorer but I will be making only the most crucial at the point. Here are some of the biggest Explorer issues which still persist. I kindly request Microsoft to please pay attention to them and get them fixed:

Most overlooked design changes that need to be made:

1. Forced auto refresh issue: Files in Explorer are continuously kept sorted even if the user wants them to get sorted after he pressed F5/Refresh. Because they are kept sorted, any file modification activity such as copy-paste, creation, rename or deletion makes files jump to obey the sort order and users lose track of things. This is now the most active and yet not-resolved Explorer annoyance. See this thread for details: social.msdn.microsoft.com/…/27314d0a-9c70-4b79-93e7-23fe60e7e374 . A global setting to always sort or sort when the user wants would resolve this issue permanently once and for all – for those who complain that Explorer doesn't auto sort and also for those who don't want items to get sorted immediately after a file operation. A related issue is the removal of auto arrange which many users used to arrange images and videos within a folder in icon views. Please look into that thread that explains both issues.

2. From the days of Windows 95, the Status bar showed free disk space and total size of files in a folder at all times. This feature was very convenient. You did not have to go to My Computer to view free disk space. Windows 7 did not show this but Classic Shell fixed this issue for Windows 7 and Vista. Now Microsoft has once again changed the status bar control in Windows 8 to a non-standard one (DirectUI stuff) so now the status bar once again does not show critical information like file size which some users need all the time at a glance. What's worse, third parties can't fix it either. You may have made this change for performance reasons but please understand that things like size should be visible all the time for users who need it. This is a serious blocking issue for me. See this thread for details: social.msdn.microsoft.com/…/69de0cc1-b91b-4fd8-96c3-8299f8ed0488 You can't expect users every time to select all files in a folder minus the subfolders , then Alt+Enter just to see total size of all files. That is a serious reduction in usability and ease of use at the cost of performance.

Windows 8 regressions compared to Windows 7:

1. The folder conflict/overwrite prompt has been removed. We are only prompted in Windows 8 when a file conflict occurs. This is highly dangerous and offers less control during copy. This is a regression to the file copying functionality and unacceptable.

2. The Details and Preview pane now share the same width and same position in Explorer as the Details pane was moved from the bottom to the right to increase vertical height. There are many problem with this change that you can still address. First, the combined Details/Preview pane cannot be resized to a size smaller than a certain (default) size. You can only resize it larger. The minimum width of this is far too wide for the Details pane. In Windows 7 and in Windows Vista, I could reduce the height of the Details pane (because it was horizontal back then) to a very small size as possible so I can increase the number of files displayed. Please allow the Details pane to resized to a smaller vertical size. Second, one cannot enable Details pane and Preview pane simultaneously as could be done in Windows 7. I like to keep the Details pane always on in Explorer but turn on the Preview pane when needed. Now every time I turned off the Preview Pane, I have to turn on the Details pane and also resize it again every time. At least, the system should remember separate sizes for both panes so when I toggle either of them, I don't have to constantly resize.

2. Select multiple files in Explorer, then from the Ribbon's View tab, sort them by some criteria. Notice, the selection of files is lost! This did not happen in Windows XP or Windows Vista. The same thing happens, i.e the selection is lost, if you select multiple files, navigation to some other location from the breadcrumbs bar and click Back. Clicking Back in such a case should take you back with the file selection preserved (like Windows Vista).

At this point (beta/consumer preview stage, I just request Microsoft to fix the top bugs I mentioned as the most overlooked ones-auto refresh and status bar). Would delight me if all of the problems I highlighted in previous comments and in the Windows Developer Preview forum threads were fixed.

In addition to Breno Ferreira's comment, I would like to point that almost all the non-Metro icons should be reworked. There are some really old and ugly icons in Windows, icons from 10-15 years ago, there's not an excuse to such a thing. You need to pay more attention to details, icons are an important part of it, Metro or not. Try to find a decent icon in that popup when you try to change an icon, almost all are crap.

I notice that Windows 8 Developer Preview still hasn't got an *Add New Font Button* functionality in *Fonts in Control Panel* – something I and a large number of Windows 7 Tech BT's campaigned for but were refused with the feeble excuse of "lack of resources and time"!?

1. What I'd like to see coming back is when I open a folder in the main window, the folder tree on the left expands down to that folder

2. File Copying – in Windows 7 if I was to copy a large number/size of files and one or two had a name conflict, the conflict resolution box appears potentially some way into the process. It should preferably appear straight after the file discovery phase and let me select my options whilst the files with no conflicts carry on copying behind the scenes. This would be a much better UX.

Thanks for the improvemenets to Explorer. Could you also consider doing this:

* combine the menu entries for cmd.exe and PowerShell, as suggested in other comments

* make it possible to run PowerShell ISE rather than the console version (no, ISE is not only for editing, it has much better Unicode support, and a better completion UI)

* support very long paths (more than 256 chars)

* update your Recycle Bin implementation so that it works in more scenarios, especially volumes mounted at a directory rather than a drive letter

* improve the way your UI handles extreme cases, such as very deep directory structures or directories with a huge number of files (not making it a priority is OK, but once the main scenarios are handled nicely, it's time to make sure you can handle unusual ones)

Please do something about the look of the ribbon. Use Office 2010 style at least. And I am sure you can do something better to merge aero and Metro (shape of the arrows, of the scolling bars, of the close and reduce buttons, etc…) Thanks !

Not to be a dick or anything, but why don't you guys compile your code for the latest Intel Instruction Sets (as recent as the majority of the users support it, such as SEE2) and go into your code, and optimize every function for memory usage/ cpu cycle usage, and bit width?

I would like to see the ability to select multiple folders in Explorers tree view and the contents of the selected folders get displayed in one pane.

Also a reverse search function would be good. Meaning to exclude files with certain criteria from the resultsets. When looking for a file often you don´t know what the file is but you know what it is not. So it would be great to do a search by defining criterias which must not be met

I want to be able to set a folder and all subfolders to thumbnail preview at once instead of doing this folder by folder.

About the powershell thing in the file menu, that should really be hidden in a sub menu, with command prompt as well, not only because they're practically the same (both command environments) but more importantly, because the ease of access is alarming. n00bs really shouldn't have access to that SO easily.

on the continous shots pof the Explorer Ribbon, All I see is clutter. a mass of icons everywhere with no method to the madness, perpetuated be gradients on everything. If you're gonna go for Metro, can we go all the way atleast?

simplfy the icons, simplify the layout, and simplify the background elements.

Why is the Orange "Picture Tools" button not left centered? a double or triple space between that and the navigation buttons would make sense to show that they are seperate, but it's in the middle of nowhere, so it should be left aligned if there are multiple of those addressband buttons, or centered if theres only one per window.

I've been think this idea over for a few weeks, If I've already said it, I apolagize.

the Registry is a database, yes?

so why don't you rewrite the files that contain the registry to be 1 large database file, IE SQLite 3 preferably, and simply rewrite the functions that access the regitry, all function calls would work between windows versions,a dn Windows 8 would (FINALLY!!!) get a more suitable Registry expierence.

Microsoft please realize that I may not want to merge subfolders at all or only merge select subfolders during file copying when conflicts occur. Please return the folder conflict prompt or modify the existing dialog to accomodate subfolders that select entire files below them like this: http://i.imgur.com/P8o6e.png . Silently merging subfolders isn't right and will cause potential mix-up of data.

"Please, increase the icon size of folders pinned to start menu. Seriously, all those big tiles with huge icons and a folder with a 16×16 (or 32×32, I'm not sure) resolution looks awful. It's totally out of balance with the rest of the UI in general."

What Microsoft needs to do, visually with the standard Windows 7 look, is they need to reduce clutter, almost every transparent element is very opaque, and looks like really cloudy water, and they need something simple and square, the rounded corners won't cut it anymore (Pun intended). kinda exactly like what I did with my Theme Cloud7, but like they had more time and were actually paid for doing it (;

What happens with "same time" when daylight savings come into play? Different file systems and servers handle that differently. Depending on your current time zone, it at least used to be that the last modified date reported actually changed, and this even behaved differently on NTFS and UDF. I don't know a reasonable solution, but it's something worth taking into account. When you provide this explicit interface, the user will suddenly be startled if it breaks under some conditions, or if all files on the network share are suddenly reported as "changed".

Honestly, one thing I miss in Windows 7 is the "Slide-show" display in Explorer. It's so awkward to look at, manage, and move around in a folder full of images. I want to be able to just double-click on an image and see it full screen (or nearly so), be able to easily move to 'next' and 'previous' image ( in the current Explorer sort order ), easily jump back to the full (usually "large icon") display of all images, etc. Beign able to jump directly into a full-screen "slide-show" flipping through the images would also be nice, without having to take the (LONG!) time to load up some other software to do this. It reallly feels like it "fits" within Explorer, as an extension of preview.

To extend the metaphor, it would certainly be nice to be able to 'jump into' any other file types with registered "viewers" (pdf, word, excel, text, etc) and naviage to 'next' and 'previous', document by document. From these read-only previews, it would be nice to be able to jump into an editor of choice as well, directly. And then be able to pop back to where you were when you close that app.

I'd also like to add my vote for making the desktop more Metro like in appearance. Going from a Metro app to the desktop is a very unnatural transition and the experience needs to be consistent. Even if it's just a theme enabled by default so regular users are not disoriented when they first launch a legacy application, power users can change the theme if desired. Thanks, looking forward to the beta.

That Windows Explorer, Documents, My Executable, Eventrwr in the screen capture of Start screen are just plain ugly.. Please align those with the Internet Explorer or Store logo which shows the big icon and small title than the other way around. For Folder shortcut, it will be nice to show icon with little preview of documents inside..

Great improvements! but please make the user interface grayscale, or let the user define the color tone. I hate the blue interface of windows desktop menus and ribbon. Give us an option like in Office 2007/2010

Not sure if this is the right place to suggest this or not because it's a bit unrelated. It's regarding GUI and hotkeys though so hopefully it's ok to ask here.

In windows 7 hot keys were introduced to manipulate items on your taskbar, it windows + (1-9). One thing I always hated, was having to count from left to right to figure out which hotkey (1-9) manipulated which program on the taskbar. Can you set up some sort of transparent overlay that will indicate the number associated with each taskbar item when the windows key is held down? Would it also be possible to see a list of open/running programs in the metro interface? Can we have access to a "taskbar" of some sort there?

I get it that you guys need an iPad killer. I get it that there are those that will want a seamless ipad to desktop experience. But for worker bees in the office that work on documents and spreadsheets, don't redesign the place so much that I get push back on rolling out "eye candy" that slows down their productivity.

I had to wean people off the classic menu in Office and onto the ribbon. Change is not easy and your track record with helping us IT folks with transitions not good.

Don't forget us folks that brought you here while you are trying so hard to turn yourself into Apple.

Bummed my previous suggestion didn't make it: Would love to pin the Favorites section so that I never have to scroll to get it into view. That would let me drag to the desktop (or other favorite locations) without having to first scroll the treeview to the top. Would be a big time saver for me.

PLEASE bring back sorting by column in views other than detailed. It was in Vista, but removed from 7!? You could have a folder of photos in large icon view, but still have clickable columns at the top for sorting. Much better than right-click ->sort-by ->hoping the option you want is there etc. BRING IT BACK!

"The system presents all confirmations before it starts to move or copy files. While copying, any interrupt issues are queued and presented once the system has completed all the work it can. In the beta, we’ve made improvements in how confirmations are presented, making sure they don’t get lost amongst existing running copies."

You should display "interrupt issues" when they happen but still continue to do all the work system can. This saves everybody the most amount of time.

A lot of us are awaiting windows 8 to hit the shelfs and with it I am personally very much looking forward to buy my first tablet pc. I am as excited about this as can be, but still I haven't really seen any proof that the desktop environment will deliver when NOT connected to periphals such as stylous, mouse or keyboard. I am talking about gestures!

How are you working with making the desktop environment not only accessible but intuitively interactive in a touch environment? Are you going to introduce any gestures or similar techniques to improve the quality of touch operations?

Thank you for the great post! It is always refreshing to see such proactive responses to user feedback.

I was kind of hoping for a discussion on why the decision was made to again not have explorer tabs. Since I cannot imagine a situation where I have been comparing the contents of folders side-by-side, the only drawback to using tabs that comes to mind would involve moving files and folders around. The current "Drag and Drop" method is already clunky, requiring users to position their windows side by side, and then moving the file across. I believe adding tabs would be a great opportunity to improve on this experience (e.g. upon user picking up a file and dragging, currently tabbed folders could pop up into a matrix or a list, making it easier to move the file to a new location)

Windows 7 regressed its support for thumbnail previews. Currently, the thumbnail cache database gets truncated when the db reaches a certain size. The db also becomes corrupted over time, although this is only seen because permissions have been altered so that the db cannot be deleted by the system.

For those users owning and working with large numbers of media files, this behavior is maddening. For many, it takes hours to rebuild their database of thumb previews. I cannot believe that this has not been fixed in Windows 7.

well i really appreciate with windows work that they have done doing for windows 8 ,METRO UI is stunning approach towards success because its all new thing that customers gonna experience it has app store one of great features of win 8 os , overall great platform for upcoming windows 8 tablets….

But if we consider about then i think nothing new on Desktop side i mean no change in UI ….

please work on improving the icons. windows icons are terrible when compared to the competieion. their icons are beautiful and sensible. please make icons beautiful and sensible. revamp all the icons. that alone gives awesome experience.

desktop icons on metro ui looks terrible. revamp !! dont make it halfbaked and postpone to next version. win team needs more attention to detail.

Whilst it is good for MS to listen to feedback – for the most part it is ‘selected hearing’ – there is a lot of discussion about design – for example the ribbon is a 1 – 2 year old design and with Windows 8 coming this year it will quickly fall behind in terms of design methodology – it is just another sense that they don’t care about the desktop design at all and don’t have serious design teams or plans for desktop use – it seems that stupid things like having ‘open in PowerShell’ they are all more enthusiastic about. Where are your design teams?!!! Why aren’t they scrutinising every single pixel of this?!!!

– The Explorer ribbons (while a great addition) look messy. Three small stacked icons are just slightly higher than a single large icon (in the "Clipboard" section, for example). Couldn't you reduce the maximum number of stacked icons to two? It would look cleaner and save some precious vertical space.

– About the tabs: It seems as if all the file operation commands are located under the "Home" tab instead of "File", shouldn't it be the other way around? It's a bit confusing.

I just want to point out that those arrow icons are freaking dinosaurs now. Please don't use them. Overhaul the icons and graphics for Windows 8 please… getting tired of looking at the same old stuffily designed UI.

If I maximize the Ribbon, close my Explorer window and re-open another Explorer window later on, will the Ribbon remember it was maximized? Will the maximized/minimized state be remembered across reboots/shutdowns as well?

So far i like almost everything i have seen about Win 8, and i am looking forward to the public beta. The 1 thing i want to say is that i know when/if i upgrade to Win 8 the first i am going to be doing is to disable MetroUI, Its ugly, non functional. If M$ doesn't give us a way to turn it off i am sure someone will find a reg hack to do it and it will be used immediately.

Please include the ability to use a fixed-width font in details view. At work, we deal with many files that are the same number of characters in length and use several three- and four-digit alpha codes in the file names. Unfortunately, when the codes have different letters (and you're not using a fixed-width font), the codes don't line up easily within the file names and it makes it difficult to find specific files. At least give us this option please, as I can find no way in Windows 7 to change the UI font for Windows Explorer files in details view.

ALSO: Whenever I drag a file from an email into windows explorer and hit F2 to rename the file, the cursor appears in the document name at the end of the file name and before the .extension. But a moment later, the entire name of the file gets highlighted. So if I'm trying to append something to the current file name, I end up renaming the entire file what I only inteneded to append. But this unintentional highlighting of the entire file name happpens not just once, but TWICE. The second time happens right after the first, when the file jumps into aphabetical order. It's very strange and frustrating (this is on a network drive, BTW). So instead of copying a file into a folder and then hitting F2 and appending the file name, this occurs: I copy the file into the folder, then hit F2. The cursor is placed at the end of the file name, but before the extension. Then spontaneously, the entire file name gets highlighted. I hit the right arrow button to place the cursor where I want it again, and a moment later the file jumps into alpha order and the entire name is highlighted once again. I hit the right arrow key once more and can now finally append the file name. It's super frustrating. Please take a look at fixing this in Windows 8. THANKS!

Off-Topic, but… The "Snipping Tool" is one of my most used Windows utilities. I'd love to see it enhanced. Not just easy screen grabs of Metro apps, but more tools to allow you do do things like circles/elipses, square and rounded rectangles, and arrows (for annotating screen captures right in the tool without having to save it and then load it up in full blown image-editing software). But mostly, I want to add the ability to be able to catch menus (drop-downs), and tool-tips as well.

Please do _not_ sync the ribbon maximize/minimize setting across multiple PCs. I definitely want all my other customizations sychronized, but not that setting. I'm a hotkey user primarily so I keep the ribbon minimized on my laptop and desktop but on my tablet, where I don't have a keyboard, I keep the ribbon maximized. Ribbon maximize/minimize is going to vary for a single user across form factor. I'm going to have to maximize or minimize it constantly as I switch from system to system. It's going to suck even more whn, as I often do, I use my tablet and laptop at the same time.

The designers are not even close and don’t seem to even care as far as I can see! you are like zombies you don’t have a clue at all!

Every single pixel in that desktop OS should be a masterpiece, icons, shadows, ribbon, absolute scrutiny on every part to the highest standard, you can’t seem to do it, so offer a group of the world’s top UI designers a few million each to do it for you and have a 6 month UI design project to make Windows the best looking OS on the planet – a new visual style that totally and absolutely kicks a**.

You are deluded if you think this is currently reimagining Windows, I can’t believe that we are going to Beta with this crappy design, still love Windows though – tough love.

Not forcing the awful Explorer Ribbon thing but then forcing the more than awful Metro UI on Windows8 is going to turn it into another Vista like failure.

Better Metro UI interface becomes an option for whoever loves wasting time on such a silly interface that could be usable on tablets and smartphones but absolutely pointless and pathetic on desktop and servers. Do any of you there at Microsoft really believe that people working with PCs in any business that just need to do things quickly with no fancy stuff and UI interfaces should just help having better access to more functions would then ever think about having to waste time on a Metro UI ?? Are you going to force the awful Metro on Window8 Server editions too?

Say I'm moving a batch of files, and several duplicates turn up. If I choose not to copy them, they don't get moved, which means I need to go back and clean up the source folder. If I do move them, it adds time to the operation. Neither option is good, but I admit I usually choose to go ahead and move them (replacing the exact duplicate that's already there), since it's easier than doing the cleanup. I'm not sure of the solution, but it is an issue.

2. W7 Navigation pane scrolling

Great that you fixed this in W8! PLEASE patch in W7. As you yourself note, the Answers link says you choose not to fix it. Please change your mind.

Search is not really fun. swittiching between metro ui and desktop ui to serach is really crappy idea. it is hurting my eyes when I have to switch between desktop and metro.

I used developer preview for 1.5 months and my eyes were strained much quicker than win 7. continuous switching is not fun. Make it easy guys, we are paying you lot of money. Dont let me leave windows for ever. This will be the last chance. I had really bad experience with vista. In fact it almost screwed up my final exam when I was in masters.

Does the explore allow to show the folder size in the Explorer window itself just like file size? In Windows 7, the size column is empty for folder. User has to right click on the folder icon to get context menu and then click properties to view folder size (minimum 2 clicks).

Here is something I really hope gets fixed but maybe it already did. In Windows 7 if you set the group policies so that files do not automatically synchronize but users are allowed to decide, their own offline files then it take a very long time to login. See the link below. This can be problem for people with large redirected home folders but small local disk space. On a tablet, this will be a big issue since most are less than 64GB currently. Maybe I do not want to synchronize all my music and just my documents to my tablet. With the way it is now in Windows 7 it is all or nothing unless you want it to take 20 minutes to login. Please Please Please fix.

I love the new features, but I still don't understand why name, size and attribute of files should be enough to detect identity. Also if there are lots of similar files is boring to check picture by picture. Wouldn't be possible to have an option like: binary comparison before overwrite, or at least through a CRC comparison.

1. I miss being able to quickly cycle through the available icon layout modes. Can you improve this by modifying the way the button works in the quick access toolbar? An option to press alt+v m, e or l etc to quickly change to a spesific icon layout without having to use the mouse would also be nice (like it is in Windows 7).

I use keyboard shortcuts whenever I can. This includes Alt- combinations. I notice that especially in Office 2007 and 2010, there's a considerable delay before the Alt is recognized. This means that I often end up typing into my document instead, e.g., "ef" when I'm trying to find something. I hope this gets fixed for Windows overall and for Office in particular.

can you guys not design good looking icons ??? small kids who are learning photoshop are designing amazing icons.. go search on the web… infact you dont have to hire someone to do that for you… just download those icons and use it.. there are a bunch of free ones… hmmmm

It's so great to see the engineering teams and the product group paying such close attention to the feedback received by everyone as a result of the blog posts here and from those of us playing with the developer preview. It's a fascinating evolution of a product that we spend so much of our time using everyday.

I'm wondering if Windows Photo Viewer supports the EXIF orientation as well. Hope it does. The only reason I skip using Windows Photo Viewer or Windows Live Photo Gallery is because of the orientation.

Could you please allow us to enble/disable drag-and-drop in Windows Explorer, instead use a pop-up menu (like in Linux), or to choose to always prompt for confirmation? This will eliminate accidental drag-and-drop in the same drive — leading to file moving disaster that cannot be undone?

In fact, I searched around the web and couldn't find a native Windows solution; there are tons of similar request out there since Windows XP. There are some third party hacks but I am afraid a lot of people fell into malware trap just to get around this issue.

This would be a great time saver for many folks, I am sure. Thank you.

Something that there has been very little information is how Windows 8 will work in the enterprise. Will users be able to store their work-pc preferences in AD? What options will be available for System Admins with all the new features available in Win8

There are some functions in Windows 7 that I never use just because I don't know what it is even if I know I will not know how to use it because it's quite complicated. I love redesign of Task manager. Hope they will do the same thing for other dated programs especially registry editor.

I would like to see utilities for metro UI in RC such as calculator, wordpad, sound recorder, note, paint…

Built in games for Windows 7 (minesweeper, freecell, solitaire,…) are the same from those of Windows Vista. They need to be upgraded in term of graphical style as well as gameplay just like the way these games changed from Windows XP to Vista.

Can you make desktop view (not Metro) look prettier? I like how Metro looks, just not how it functions. It looks super slick and I'd like to see that translate into the old desktop view. Things like the scroll bars etc. You have them in like the settings menu, but throughout Explorer it would be great.

And can you confirm that we can turn off the Metro Startup? I don't want something there that feels completely different and I won't use it.

The horizontal scrollbar in the XP navigation pane was removed in Vista, and a horizontal auto scroll was added. The Vista auto scroll was removed in Windows 7, but the horizontal scrollbar was not returned.

When you open more and more subfolders in the navigation pane, you reach a point where the folders start to disappear off the right side of the navigation pane. The only way to reach these folders is to resize the navigation pane.

To make matters worse, if you click the blank space to the left of a folder, (So your mouse pointer is an arrow not a hand) the folder will be highlighted but will not actually open. So one folder is selected, but another folder is shown in the Explorer window.

a) If the Start Screen is going to be Metro, and will be the place we pin items from the Desktop experience as well, then please consider a graphical improvement to the icons. Using Metro with metro apps looks nice. Desktop users should not be punished with an ugly menu for the sake of a few updated icons and consistent theme-ing.

b) I too, still think there needs to be a way to make Metro and Aero parts of the system co-exist nicely. I run a dual-head system, at home and the quad-head setup at work. If only the primary screen works when clicking the "Start" button, I will be disappointed. I still say that the Start Menu, if launched from the "Desktop" should appear as part of the desktop. If you can't launch it in a full-screen menu (like Office 2010 "File" menus), then i agree with adding the desktop wallpaper behind the buttons to make it feel "attached". that and allowing Metro start and Aero desktop co-exists.

I appreciate you can only deal with one topic/subject at a time in any single thread, but I sincerely hope you don't selectively skip over the much needed "Acting on Metro UI feedback" thread, because Metro is where most of your complaints are coming from, and no matter how good the features of Windows 8 are, very few PC users who use a real computer will upgrade from Windows 7 if you don't do something with Metro.

I think one of the most polarizing things here is the discrepancy between design ideals used in Metro and those used in the rest of Windows 8. Users want a unified experience — that's what Metro brings in terms of functionality across platforms, but the traditional interface breaks the continuity.

I think the key to modernizing the Windows interface with this generation of operating systems and design is to sharpen the edges, flatten the gradients, and give the interface depth through the use of tasteful blurring and soft shadows. An update to the traditional Windows icons [as used in the Ribbon] as well as the rest of the file management system, with attention to color balance, would be welcomed by many as well, I think.

1. The highlighting for entries in the breadcrumb bar violates standard UI conventions. Each entry looks like a drop-down menu with an associated arrow on the right, but clicking on the right arrow does not change the highlighted entry to its left (per convention), but navigates to a deeper folder (on the right). Please consider highlighting the entry to the right of the arrow so the highlighted entry is the one affected by the arrow’s menu, as expected.

2. Please provide an option to show complete breadcrumb paths for folders in the UsersMYUSERNAME directory, the Desktop, etc. In other words, do not omit the first entries of the path, e.g. C: and Users before MYUSERNAME. Navigation and orientation are made more difficult by the lack of the complete path. It also introduces an inconsistency when you click in the address bar and see that the real path is different from the displayed path. In addition, there is further inconsistency because Explorer does show the complete path if you navigate to the same folder by starting at the root of the C: drive.

3. Related to issue (2), sometimes the breadcrumb bar will think that a folder in \OTHERPCc$Documents and SettingsMYUSERNAME is a part of the local Users folder and omit the first entries of the breadcrumb as described in (2), making it difficult to differentiate between a local profile folder and a shared profile folder. I think this only happens when the remote profile name matches the local (logged in) profile’s name. I can reproduce this on my Windows 7 machine by entering the UNC path in either the Start menu’s search box or the Run box.

4. Please consider an option to always show the text path instead of breadcrumbs. The above issues and increased horizontal spacing of the breadcrumb bar (over a text path) can make complex file management very frustrating.

I made a comment about the icons, and of course that's a real feeling, a lot of people are right when say that Windows need a revamp, not only in the icons, but in a lot of details around the system and that Desktop and Metro need to be more consistent together. I would like to point, about the desktop folders and files pinned in the Start, that if there's some nice icons there, the icon should be the big guy, and the folder/file name should appear in the bottom like every other Metro app pinned. That's an issue that bother me even in the Windows Phone, the home screen is great there, but when I pin an office document it looks terrible, I can't pin documents there not because I don't need, but because it make my home screen horrible. That's not fair, don't make the same mistake, even because folders and files are much more important in an Tablet/Desktop than in a phone.

But, that said, I must acknowledge that you are doing a GREAT work, I think everything you posted till now is great and will please a lot of people, even the only thing I was skeptic about, the end of the start menu and the new Start, now I buy that, I got used and I think most of people who looks radical about it now will get used to it sometime after the public release. Congrats for the good work, but, please, remember the details are important and I must feel I'm in the same OS when in Metro and when in Desktop.

Why is there still a build-in limitation of 260 characters in the explorer when using NTFS and the upcomming ReFS? It is annoying that i get an "path is too long" or "file cannot be deleted" error message because of that limitation.

I applaud listening to feedback on the copy/move function group, but I expected more regarding the Explorer ribbon. The changes feel largely cosmetic, and do not address many of the concerns that were raised before.

The Ribbon still looks quite ugly but i never really disliked it in the first place, it gets the job done. Many of my functionality problems have been addressed in W8 so heres some aesthetic problems i'd like to bring up…

The main thing i want to see is all explorer/desktop icons throughout Windows 8 completely re-designed in a Metro style. And i mean every single graphic icon – the folders, apps, services, network, display, computer icons, and everything else.

You've had the vast majority of these icons since Vista and they're looking dated now.

This is also one of the easiest things to do as they can all be left the same size, just updated. It would go a long way! And also help stop a lot of the comments from people about the desktop and Metro being too different and jarring when you switch between them (I honestly think this will be one of the biggest criticisms for W8, if not THE biggest) I know you normally leave things like this until last, but being as the BETA isn't far off now it's looking like this wont happen.

Another thing is them old ugly scroll bars in explorer, having that replaced by a Metro styled scroll bar would greatly help too. Again, keep it all the same size, just update the look. I cant see any reason for not doing these things and it seems obvious.

It's nice to see you finally focusing a lot more on the looks of things, not just the functionality, but you can go further still.

Due to OS Crash – had to rebuild, now how do I get back to Win 8? It's a long story but I do have a case number with Microsoft Team. *sigh* And yes everyone, Win 8 is AWESOME!

PS: If you think Win 7 uses less resources than Vista; consider this –> Win 8 uses far less resources than Win 7! That is a fact! Power at your fingertips and you run what you need to run, no more "excess" baggage running in the background which reduces vunerabilities considerability.

If anyone must know – I have been working primarily in development with XNA (Phone) for ZUNE where I have actually accomplished in making Zune Movies into HDMI! Take a load of that one, HDMI Movies and TV Shows on your phone not just your Win 8 OS!

@ Beany's comment – you do have the option to turn RIBBONS off; but it is a major pain because the settings does not stay there every time you close MS OFFICE, it deactivates the setting you had input. Maybe the developer there can fix that small slight glitch there .. after all … it is BETA. I have had to reset it every time MS OFFICE opens up and reset it, it isn't just the RIBBONS, but others as well. Go and look at it and you will see what I mean when you open and close it. It is a glitch; that can be fixed. But put it this way … it isn't Microsoft's Clippy there! 😀

As many people pointed out, its about time to Microsoft stop using this old style on windows, icons, etc.

Why the windows borders, headers, icons and stuff can't be more "clean"?

Metro is a beautiful design, and mixing Aero with it will not be a good idea, it doesn't match, it looks ugly.

And for people not liking Metro style, please open your mind a little, accept that things chance, and give it a try.

My first experience with Metro Style (probably even before it was called Metro) was using Zune Player on Windows – way back in Windows Vista.

The software is a master piece of design, and has nothing do to with Aero-style, not even the window of the program itself. And my first thought was "Oh my God, Microsoft really needs to onde day make the a Windows OS looks like this software, they will blow up the world doing it"

IMHO all Windows "windows" visual should follow what they've done at Zune Software. If you don't agree, I just let you with some question, and be honest on thinking of it:

– Why all programs need that "top bar" so highlighted (where the minimize/maximize/close are)? Zune software doesn't have it and have no difference at all on usability.

– Why all "window headers" need to be so cluttered with lines/divisions/3D effects/gradients? They do nothing for the usability itself, just make things more distracting

– Why (for God sakes) the windows borders need to have this little 3D effect on it? No, really, it really makes you see the content better? For me is the other way around. Zune Software doesn't have it, it just a nice 2 or 3px border w/o any effect, just plain color on it, and looks very nice.

You know guys, I'm a huge fan of Windows and Microsoft. Even being using Mac OS X at my work for almost 5 years now, I'm still a Windows user at my house and have no interest of changing it.

Bu I'm also a person who works with design, with UI, and I must say: the "clean" of the UI at OS X is a HUGE part of why people use it, also because it reflects on third-part softwares – it makes me cry every time I need to find some simples software for windows and I only find terrible ugly options, while on OS X the alternative will have a beautiful UI most of the time.

Windows already allows saving searches since Vista as a search folder. It even adds a shortcut to the saved search automatically to the Favorites panel. Why not allow searches to be saved as a library (convert the .search-ms into a .library-ms and store it the Libraries namespace) so when we click it, the navigation pane doesn't jump down like it does for saved searches. Or allow pasting any file types into the Libraries namespace so we can just store .search-ms files inside Libraries.

Also, why are no new hotkeys added to Windows Explorer since Windows 95? Besides Ribbon keyboard shortcuts, why not add direct hotkeys for "Create shortcut", "Paste shortcut", "Pin to taskbar", "Pin to Start menu", "Pin to Start screen", "Invert selection", toggling the various panes like Details and navigation panes, Group By, Sort By, Run as admin, Open cmd prompt here and the various views. Why Ctrl+Shift+Enter on any file in Explorer not open it as admin like it does from Start Menu? Please don't design Explorer like you design the basic accessories in Windows. You have to keep Explorer for power users.

Another request to please fix the navigation pane scrolling bug with a Windows 7 patch. I'm annoyed it's taken this long to recognise the issue, let alone get a fix.

Also, another productivity problem I have with Windows 7's Explorer is that top-level nodes in the navigation pane remember their expansion state. When I press Win+E, I expect to get an Explorer window that looks the same each time, regardless of where I've explored in previous sessions. This would enable me to quickly go to where I want. But because the expansion state of the top-level nodes are essentially random each time, it takes me several seconds to adjust and find the entries I want.

Hey, here's another thing. I know this sounds tough, but if it will be optional in the RC(since it's beta escrow stage now), many people will appreciate it.

You know that Office 14 made a great improvement on its Ribbon. We can add tabs with our favorite options grouped. But contents in some core tabs are locked(eg. Start, Edit, …).

Why will we have it fully opened? For example, I just want a tab, which named "Functions", in which there are "Copy path", "Pin to Start", and so on. Because some functions are useless for me(like "map as drive"), and many can be done with shortcuts so they shouldn't be there.

You can get a list of all functions (I think it's not difficult) and it is we that pick them out to put in the Ribbon. I am sure that many "customizers" will love it!

Well if MS is going to keep Metro please de-uglify it and let us be able to customize it. Second IE does not EVER shut down so its IMPOSSIBLE to load Flash and I really do NOT like Java. So fix that. If I had an Ipad/tablet or a smartphone it would probably be cool to have but I don't. I find myself flipping back to desktop and living there rather than using much in Metro. For serious gaming where I am actually not playing tinker or games like it I go to the desktop and live there. With the facebook/twitter buttons I still tend to live in the desktop because I am on a PC not a smartphone and its just too strange and buggy.

Don't release the new pretty Windows 8, have it be a MAJOR flop by crashing or just simply not working but have pretty graphics or new options, charge 100+ for retail full version only to see how horrible it is and whip out another Windows 9 right on it's tailcoats that is EXACTLY the same sans broken parts and charge another 100+ for basically a "sorry it was broke here it is fixed" version.

I seem to remember Windows 95/98…. Windows Vista/7… is Windows 8/9 going to be the same?

Nice to see some common sense options that have been available for 20yrs in other op systems finally being added.

A copy (replace older) option would be nice, how about adding an easy color change to the folder icons, I find it a lot easier to find what I want when I change the color of the folders based on general content, ie..all my image folders are blue, all my text folders are red, data folders are green.

"Please, increase the icon size of folders pinned to start menu. Seriously, all those big tiles with huge icons and a folder with a 16×16 (or 32×32, I'm not sure) resolution looks awful. It's totally out of balance with the rest of the UI in general."

You also need better direct hotkeys than this like we have Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, F2, F5, Ctrl+Z, Alt+arrow keys. Like Ctrl+Shift+H to toggle hidden files, Ctrl+Shift+C to copy paths, Ctrl+Shift+'.' to toggle extensions, Alt+S for sorting, Alt+G for grouping, Alt+N to toggle navigation pane, Ctrl+S to paste shortcut, Ctrl+I to invert selection and so on. These key combinations are unused in Explorer anyways. Or you could use Win key combinations. Please please just provide more direct keyboard hotkey shortcuts for commands which never got shortcuts after Windows 95.

It is really nice to see Microsoft improving the product based on customer feedback. One thing that you might consider fixing as a usability issue with Windows Explorer has to do with the tree view extending the selection highlight all the way to the scrollbar. Quite often I've gone to move the scrollbar on the tree view, missed it by a pixel or two and wound up grabbing a directory. Before I know it, Windows is indicating that I'm moving a directory. Now *I* know I can press ESC to stop the move but I have to wonder how many average users move directories around unintentionally because the TreeView selection extends right up to the scrollbar. How about changing the selection width to stop say 4 – 8 pixels short of the scrollbar?

We've been begging MS for this from day one. I don't even want to turn on the laptop I put it on, the screen being yanked out from under me to start and app is something I can't get used to and it's slow on my laptop.

The mouse/keyboard support is abysmal (I'll believe it will improve when I see it). Metro is bad for business and bad for users.

Since posting about the new file system has been locked to further comments (funnily enough, BEFORE the TechNet e-mail went out with a link to that article), I just want to say this: If you are going to heavily base your new FS on Sun's/Oracle's ZFS file system, why not just be upfront about it and say that you got inspiration from the Zettabyte File System? None of this "engineered from the ground up" nonsense.

While I applaud the fact that MS is finally trying to move past the ancient NTFS file system, I feel that Microsoft is doing the "We invented this! Aren't we great!" song and dance. Furthermore, limiting that feature to just servers is plain stupid, and that leads me to the big complaint I have about Windows in general: One SKU is enough. You don't need several different "versions" of Windows. How ridiculous will it be to walk into a store and see "Super Ultra Hyper Ultimate Windows 8 +1" sitting on the shelf? Just give us "Windows 8". Give everyone all features, give the end-user the new FS to play with and torture, give us all features full-out like other OS makers do. Everyone at MS would have a far easier time (and also IT people) supporting an OS if it didn't have multiple personalities.

Don't arrive late to the show and show off your "new" technologies that have already been invented, tested, and proven by others, and then make us pay more to have said technologies. "Introducing the Microsoft Round Thing! Engineered from the ground up for you by the geniuses at Microsoft! Eh? What's that you say? Wheel? What's this wheel you speak of? Well, It can't be important. All you need to know is Microsoft Round Thing! It will allow you to do things you were never able to do EVER before, but only if you buy the most expensive SKU. If you can't afford that, then you'll simply have to make due with Microsoft Square Thing! Now with 100% less ease of use!" It just goes to prove that it's not a world until it's a Microsoft World….

there is a fundemental forehead slapping ommision from all windows OS (and osx). Connect explorer wth program dialogue boxes. Its insanity that I have to navigate manually to a location that is already open in an explorer window. I've been using a tiny app called filebox extender just for this functionality: when you are in a programs file dialogue box simply click on a file in an explorer window and the dialogue box will jump to that files location.

I love what you did with explorer, and I think minimizing the ribbon by default will help a ton. All the time I hear of people hating the ribbon interface, preferring the classic menu and toolbar setup. If only they knew that you could bring the quick access toolbar below the ribbon, then minimize the ribbon. That way, it behaves a lot like the classic setup.

There are two things I miss about the new explorer, though:

1: I really liked the handy blue side pane that had a list of common tasks for the selected files. This feature was only in windows xp 🙁

2: I liked how windows vista and windows 7 explorer extended the glass frame below the title bar, it made explorer look cool 8-). Maybe you could do something like this in the windows 8 explorer, like the office 2010 ribbon? just a thought.

@c_barth: You can "right-click" with touch on a Windows 8 tablet using a press-and-hold gesture. You should be able to do almost anything with a touchscreen that you could with a mouse and keyboard, excluding a few things like mouse-over – which nothing in the Windows UI relies on (that I've been able to find, anyway!). It's not always as easy on the desktop because of the size of some of the UI elements, but it can still be done in a pinch.

Already, the W8 development team has elaborated on the improved process management model gleaned from experience in a mobile market where a sleeping process is a valuable asset. Already, it seems that the Windows CPU is, long after XP's withdrawal from the market, finally going to be able to wind down its clock and conserve power, something other OS's have made a note to do for some time.

However, that's only theoretical. As it currently stands, many processes in Windows 7 take it upon themselves to stay away, not the least of the offenders being svchost and its related Windows Services. The most relevant service in question? Automatic Defrag. Ever since it was implemented, in Vista if I'm correct, my processor has had to feign idle while throwing around CPU cycles for hard disk access while my hands are completely off. Since I installed Vista in those heady days of that questionable marketing push, I don't remember a time when my hard disk access light wasn't blinking.

My question to Microsoft is: What is being done to truly curb this? With the rise of mobile devices and solid-state memory, is Windows 8 going to put less of a priority on keeping data organized? Will my hard disk access light stay off for more than 3 or so seconds while idle? Will my CPU monitor ever read absolutely and completely "0"?

(I know that's an impossibility, any CPU monitor will eat up cycles itself. But you get the idea.)

What am want for file copying is some kind of message when the copying is complete. I start transfering 50GB and leave the PC to work, but when am back the window is gone, ant i have no feedback if it was successfull. Maybe a checkbox to verrify files would be handy.

To the moderator attention: sorry for my previous comment entry, I just found in the Windows 8 Developers Edition the option I was spoken about (regarding the folder templates). So there is no need for my comment to be published. Thank you!

Another vote for ONE SKU. I'm an IT admin and there are so many SKU's available in either retail or volume licensing that it's super confusing just trying to figure out which to buy, or navigating that terrible volume licensing portal to figure out even which SKU's we actually own. Throw in SA and the proplems get more complex again.

The filename copy collision dialog groups the files into location – source and destination. This is fundamentally the wrong basis for comparing files of the same name. The files should be grouped on the basis of Last Write Time – older and newer. On what conceivable basis are you grouping files by location, rather than relative age? File copy utilities like Xcopy and Robocopy either make copy decisions based on LWT by default, or via available switches – they do not even include options to copy based on a preference for source or destination location. The file copy collision dialog design is just flat-out weird. A user who very rationally decides to keep all the *newest versions* of their files is forced to hunt and peck through the list, comparing file dates (and in the example given, in that strange m/d/y mixed-endian date format that is difficult to scan). This is inconceivably poor design. In fact i would say this is easily the worst specific design error in the whole Win8 DP. Not the design error with the greatest impact – it is only a dialog box, to be sure – but it is the one thing i would say is just unarguably in error. What is important is when the user last worked on or in some way modified each file, not the name of the source or destination, which is irrelevant. I can claim objectivity over passion regarding this, for the simple reason that for most serious file copy/move operations, i use Robocopy. [Note to Robocopy developers: Please update the XP027.doc document (one of Microsoft's best ever) for whatever version is included in Win8. In this version, can you include a :hardlinks modifier for the /create switch, and an option to pipe the summary-only to the console (with regular updates), while still creating a log file with user-defined options. Thanks.]

Current dialog: "If you select both versions, the copied file will have a number added to its name."

Again, that is just wrong. The copied file should be regarded as the file the user deems the preferred version, and therefore the master or reference copy. If both files are retained, it is the *destination* file that should be renamed – or using my preferred older/newer layout – the *older* file is renamed, or, if the file dates are the same, the destination file. The master copy absolutely should not be renamed under any circumstance. The renaming format of just adding a number seems inadequate. My preference would be "File name(Previous version).ext" -> "File name(Previous version 2).ext" …

Please redo the file conflicts dialog like this:

Top:

There are files in both the source and destination locations, with the same file name.

Choose which files you want copy or skip…

(If you keep both files for any conflict, the newer/source file keeps its current name, and the older/destination file has a previous version indicator appended to its name.)

Source location = <Source name>

Destination location = <Destination name>

For each file name conflict:

[x] Keep/copy a file if newer (regardless of location)

[x] Hide conflict when dates and sizes are matching (assume files are identical)

[x] Also skip copy for identical files

List:

Older files | Newer files

Bottom:

[Continue] [Cancel]

File example:

<File name.ext>

[*] [picture]

• <timestamp>

• <size>

• In: <Source name|Destination name>

* Auto-check if "Keep/copy a file if newer" is checked and file is newer.

Re Explorer ribbon and minimized by default, i'll say more this later, but for now i have to say the following quote seriously begs a few questions…

"With the beta, we will be making a major change that brings Explorer in line with our design principles for Windows 8. As in our copy dialogs, Task Manager, and Metro style experiences, we will be reducing distractions and trusting users to discover functionality on their own, by minimizing the ribbon by default."

So, is the Office ribbon also regarded as a distraction – yes or no? Is the Office 2010 ribbon out of line with the Windows 8 design principles? Will you be hiding the ribbons by default in Office 2012, or will the upcoming Office release continue to evade the new design principles, by including distracting UI elements? Are we going to be informed on what the new these principles actually are (other than a desire to avoid distracting the user), and by what means they were developed and usability tested, or will this be matter of the public taking MSFT on faith?

@BrianV: "Split screen within apps . . . I really hope this is in the works. I was disappointed that in the Developer Preview, I couldn't post have two web pages sitting next to each other in Metro…"

Metro and Classic UI don't seem to be logically tight together, since the classic UI looks dated and has no formal reference to Metro. Some suggestions from my side:

– I would like to see tabs on the bottom of the Metro UI which indicate open apps. This would allow fast switching and if graphically well done would look similar to an updated task bar in the classic UI.

– In Metro you are not consistent whether the text should be on top or at the bottom of a tile. This destroys a clean look and breaks the design conventions.

– The icons in classic (and partly in Metro) remind me more on Win95 than on a new system. Some fresh and reduced graphics with equal size tie both parts together.

– Allow us to change the wallpaper picture in Metro. This was traditionalist will be able to see easier that Metro and Classic are two sides of the same coin. Also you could morph nicely from one screen to the other.

Please, add support to not only pin folders and executables but also other file types. Imagine, there is a file I work with regularly. This one should be as easily accessible as folders and executables.

Please remove/fix the behavior in Windows Explorer where in List view if you click in the right hand pane on a File or Folder which has a large name then the entire listing automatically scrolls such that the highlighted file/folder is now on the left side of the right hand pane. The end result is that now the file/folder is no longer under the mouse. Very annoying behaviour.

All buttons added to the Ribbon's Quick Access Toolbar should be added as icons, why are some of them added as text? For example, I add Details pane and Preview pane toggle buttons, they show as icons. Now I add Navigation pane checkbox item inside the dropdown and it shows as text! Next I add "Remove Properties" button but it has neither Text nor icon in the Developer Preview. Why is the Favorites Places from the File menu not synchronized with the Favorites panel in Explorer navigation pane. Makes no sense having two different sets of Favorites.

The metro enviroment must get its own desktop enviroment, like like Aero classic desktop. you can use the window concept like you logo to create 4 working enviriments. The main screen should look like your logo looking through into those 4 enviroments 1. classic desktop 2. HTML enviroment (WinRT) and /or XAML 3. XAML enviroment (WinRT) OR another win OS on hyper V 3. Process control dashboard (control panel, device manager, etc etc) using metro UI XAML. Pleople are complaing about a mix of UI's with out a clear view of from MSFT whats realy going on, the problem is you are trying to merge to UI concepts into one enviroment which is prooving to be deficult on a technological percpective, to solve this create different enviroments for users to work in. 1 is good or mouse and pen, 2 and/or 3 is good for hand and pen. the developer will choose which best envroment fits his software program.

one more thing 'send to' must give option to send to specific folder on a drive.

The metro enviroment must get its own desktop enviroment, like like Aero classic desktop. you can use the window concept like you logo to create 4 working enviriments. The main screen should look like your logo looking through into those 4 enviroments 1. classic desktop 2. HTML enviroment (WinRT) and /or XAML 3. XAML enviroment (WinRT) OR another win OS on hyper V 3. Process control dashboard (control panel, device manager, etc etc) using metro UI XAML. Pleople are complaing about a mix of UI's with out a clear view of from MSFT whats realy going on, the problem is you are trying to merge to UI concepts into one enviroment which is prooving to be deficult on a technological percpective, to solve this create different enviroments for users to work in. 1 is good or mouse and pen, 2 and/or 3 is good for hand and pen. the developer will choose which best envroment fits his software program.

one more thing 'send to' must give option to send to specific folder on a drive.

If I had a wish for Windows Explorer, it would be for an easier way to sort in large icon view.

Currently I have to switch to Details view, click on the header (like "Date descending"), and then switch back to icon view (to, for example, actually see the images in my picture folder in most-recent-first order).

It would be nice if there was a nice, easy, clickable (touchable?) way to change the sort order directly from icon view. There is an "Arrange by" option (which I rarely find a need to use), can there also be an "order by" option? "Arrange by day" doesn't do what I want or need… I want to "Arrange by folder" and "order by modification date-time"… or by name… or by size…

This one change would improve my productivity dramatically, because I'm ALWAYS doing this.

In versions of Windows priot to Vista when I navigate folder and files, the folder pane on the left followed with the main file pane. As I moved in and out of folders utilizing the file pane, the folder pane kept my current folder expanded and focused. With Windows 7 I can navigate to a folder via the file pane, but the folder pane stays collapsed. If I wish to start using the folder pane, I must manually expand to my current folder. Will this oversite be corrected in Windows 8?

I think the next blog needs to be titled "Acting on Appearance Feedback".

Folks, while opinions on aesthetics do vary, there are certain design principles which offer near unanimous appreciation: Consistency, Attention to Detail, and a GUI which enables a smooth workflow.

The preponderance of comments on here and in other blogs seems to be basically saying "Hey, nice OS. Shame it's so damned *ugly*". If you don't address the incredible chasm in terms of appearance and operation with Metro and the Desktop, all of Win8's technical improvements will be for naught IMO. Users will be turned off from the outset.

The "new" Aero, especially when up against Metro, just doesn't look good. There's just no "flow" to it, not only between Metro but even with the Ribbon – it looks like a third-party add-on.

There's got to be increased cohesiveness going on here. The rule that Metro=Fullscreen is the first to go I believe.

“Open command window here” (aka “Open command prompt” in Win8) is available when you’re in a location that maps directly to a location in the file system. As you’ve said, it doesn’t make a sense in the root of a library, but should be showing up whenever you’re in a directory within it. I just tried on Win7 and Win8, and it doesn’t work for “Libraries”, nor for “Documents”, but it does then work for “My Documents” and “Documents (D:)” which are both folders included in my "Documents" library. If you’re seeing something different, let us know.

@Anon E. Mouse

Yes, your ribbon maximize setting persists across Explorer windows and sessions. And, as we mentioned in the post, across PCs if you choose to roam your Explorer settings.

@russh

File extensions are still off by default; the screenshots were taken on my machines and I choose to turn them on. This switch is now available on the View tab of the ribbon, and will also roam to other PCs.

@Alain

“Copy path” is available on the Home tab on the ribbon. It’s also available on the extended context menu (shift-right-click) on Win7 and 8.

@pmbAustin

To change your sort order when you don't have column headers, there’s the “Sort By” button on the ribbon (View tab). It’s also on the context menu.

@Terry E Dow

TerryHelper mentioned the "Expand to current folder" functionality in the Folder Options dialog in Windows 7 and 8 that will do what you want. In Win8, it's also on the Navigation Pane menu on the View tab on the ribbon

Good stuff. My request for Windows 8? Please fix the Windows Event Viewer. It was really fast in Windows XP. It is deathly slow in Windows 7. Not sure what happened to it, but it has become almost unusable.

1. Why we can't have more control over folders in explorer? (like seeing their size in detail view, or sort them).

2. One problem that i usually have with the explorer it's when i select several items (like with CTRL+Click), but accidentally click on a blank space or press some key … effectively loosing my selection. Could you add to the 'select' section of the 'Home tab', another option to regain selected items???

I know that the OS is still in beta and the look&feels will be different, but please dont forget that a coherent, seamless and natural experience is a key element of a modern OS.

3. Why not add a rating column (with ★ and ☆), allowing the users to affect the sorting without changing the file-name (specially usefull, when sorting files of same type and size like equal resolution images). Something like this:

'Open command window here' isn't available when I'm browsing any folder within a library. If I navigate to the Documents library and then to 'My Documents' (so the breadcrumb displays 'Libraries > Documents > My Documents') and open the extended context menu, the option is missing. If I navigate to 'My Documents' directly (so the breadcrumb displays 'Username > My Documents'), it is present. Please see the following screenshots:

Microsoft does not realize that they MUST fix any regressions from previous Windows versions **with priority** as well as long standing bugs and issues people have been crying for since the release of Vista. The Windows 7 Explorer status bar along with Classic Shell allowed me to work with file sizes BETTER, faster and with less keystrokes and without any performance issues than the dumbed down Windows 8 Explorer status bar does. The removal of folder conflict dialog will force me to use a third party copy engine if I can't choose the folders to overwrite and ones to skip. And auto refresh – does Microsoft on purpose not fix this just to make file management difficult and restrictive despite hundreds of thousands of complaints? What would it take to make auto refresh optional? Pay you extra for a Windows license? It is because that the shell team has been doing a really really bad job of resolving EXISTING issues and giving configurable options that projects like Classic Shell, 7 Taskbar Tweaker, Default Programs Editor and QTTabBar seen thousands of downloads. Explorer needs an overhaul of bug fixing and problem solving. Why can't there be hotfix approved and released to solve file management issues? Why is filing for a Design Change Request exclusive to premium support? We must pay to get bugs fixed in Microsoft's own product? Why is the navigation pane scrolling bug not being fixed for Windows 7?

@MurrayW–"I still say that the Start Menu, if launched from the "Desktop" should appear as part of the desktop. If you can't launch it in a full-screen menu (like Office 2010 "File" menus), then i agree with adding the desktop wallpaper behind the buttons to make it feel "attached". that and allowing Metro start and Aero desktop co-exists."

The problem with that is; how will the Desktop start menu be launched if clicking the Start button or pressing the Windows key always takes you to the Metro shell (and this behavior cannot be altered)? In these Win8 forum threads i posit the notion of user interface 'duals'.

A dual, in the UI sense, is just a view of any data set, which acts as an alternative to the the default view. In the cases linked to above, the duals are a method for using the Windows Explorer status bar to toggle between a simple and detailed data view of summary data (displayed on the status bar), and in the second case, to intiate the (expensive) enumeration and display of (visible) folder sizes. A third example might be toggling the Internet Explorer status bar to a mode that displays detailed web page loading, status, and security zone info – the 'single' in this case is the default view (by definition), and the 'dual' is the alternate, and in this case also, detailed view. A forth example, and again based around a status bar, is regarding the issue described in this blog

The single in this case displays only one printer per installed printer driver. The dual displays all printers for all drivers. Simply click the status bar to toggle to the dual, and again to toggle back to the single.

Back to the Start menu and Desktop. The trick is to determine how the on-desktop start menu will be activated, given the constraint that the Winkey and Start button cannot be used for this purpose (these are now the hardcoded portals to the Metro shell). One way would be to consider; what Desktop UI element is most visually, locationally and functionally similar to an application status bar? The answer is obvious; it's the Taskbar. The Taskbar should display the traditional start menu – on the desktop. How exactly?

• 2nd click toggles from the desktop icons view (the single) – to the start menu view (the dual)

• 3rd click toggles back to the single

• 4th click toggles back to the dual …

The sequence is broken by either using the desktop start menu to launch an app (or open a file), or by clicking once on the desktop. In the second case, clicking on the taskbar again, restores all windows.

Note: By on-desktop start menu, i don't mean a maximized window, i mean on the desktop in the same sense that desktop icons are on the desktop.

It is very important when considering the existing (Windows 7) start menu, to be aware of *all* the functionality afforded by its existence. The start menu is not only a means for launching apps and entering search queries. It also has at least one other vital function – it allows the user to easily add application links to the Taskbar. Prior posts in this blog indicate that a large majority of app launches now occur from app entry points that exist outside the start menu – and most of these are pinned links on the taskbar. Removing the start menu makes it much more difficult for users to pin items to the taskbar – or as Microsoft's own bloggers have refered to it; the 'Startbar'. It is imperative that this important *functionality* of the Start menu be retained – while removing the start menu in its current form. The Start-menu-on-desktop is the general answer, and Taskbar activation combined with the dual concept is the answer to the access problem.

It is also suggested that the existing start menu search functionality be maintained by enabling search via a revamped desktop Sidebar, which like the proposed start menu, displays search results on the desktop (in a format resembling Contents view).

Btw, the single/dual concept – and by extension, the single/dual/triple[/quad] concept, has the potential for universal applicabilty throughout Windows, none the least so in the Metro environment. This is something i can make the effort to post on, if anyone is interested.

Ohhh i think you are right about rating metadata …but i can think or someways of adding this without changing the file formats… perhaps i was requesting a feature to the wrong team (explorer team instea of file system people)

as the board cannot be used with windows 8 without this firmware update and it would seem st are in no rush to hand out a copy of this firmware. shame I was looking forward to having a go with the sensor api. doesn't look like i am going to get a chance anytime soon

What makes you think you can trust that screenshot? Obviously a taskbar without a Start button would be about the worst Windows taskbar that could possibly be created, but what makes you think that that image even shows the entire taskbar? The Start button could have been edited out of the image with a photo editor, or the picture may have been cropped.

@jader3rd, yes I have read that but have you read the comments in that post or the never ending comments elsewhere in Microsoft's Technet Social and Answers forums (including the thread I started) complaining about lack of control over auto refresh and auto arrange? In fact I am not sure if Raymond Chen is mocking Windows users when he says "Good luck trying to click on something when the contents of the folder are constantly changing." Clearly they recognise the problem but won't fix it. This is just one of the usage scenarios or problem areas where auto sorting creates a problem, where users are trying to observe a folder for new file additions but can't because the contents keep getting sorted continuously.

@Quppa : I see, it's necessary to right-click on a folder in either the nav pane or items view to open a command prompt there. In Win8, the Open Command Prompt ribbon button is available in all your cases.

Windows 8 should have a multiple-item clipboard, somewhat like the Microsoft Office Clipboard. This would allow users to copy and paste with ease, as they wouldn't have to worry about pasting into another program before copying something else. I would use this feature constantly. Please add this to Win8. Thanks for the good work.

Why not let users choose why to use metro UI or not, just put this as an option in windows initial setup, (preferably default enabled on tablet, and ask on non-touchscreen based systems since metro UI is useless if users don't have touchscreen, and have to go through registry hack to disable metro UI, that's gonna hinder upgrade sales of windows 8 on older hardware)

For administrators, it's really necessary to have group policy backup done more easily, currently in windows 7 it doesn't work that great. Also restoring service list using bat or script(automatic, manual, disable, delayed start) works not that well: delayed start services can't be restored and becomes automatic start after a restore using bat or script.

It will also be nice if Microsoft can integrate more codec in the next version of media player/center… currently many users just use third-party codec and have compatibility issues all the time and that makes windows media player look bad..

I have some more positive feedback for the Ribbon. Some of the ribbon tabs have just one command and the entire space to the right is wasted. For example, "Shortcut tools" only has "Open file location" command and no other verb. Why not move the"Shortcut tools" commands to "Application and shortcut tools" under a single tab.

For "Music Tools", why do the actions "Play" and "Play All" not respect the Default Program? Even if I have set another media player as default in Control Panel, Play and Play All open it in Windows Media Player making the two actions useless to me. Similarly for "Picture Tools", why does slideshow start the plain slideshow of Windows Photo Viewer when Windows Live Photo Gallery or Picasa have much nicer slideshows with transitions? The slideshow button should start the slideshow in Live Photo Gallery *if it is installed*. Again due to this, the slideshow button on the Ribbon is useless as I prefer to watch slideshows with transitions.

– users want choice, so options to customize style and behaviors are very appreciated;

– an INTERNAL TOOL to edit voices of the file context menu (right-click on a file) to add/del/edit "Send To" menu and other voices like "Winzip > add …" in a easy way (wizard to add voices for a specific action) [for users that have no experience using the registry and don't want to navigate in all the */shell/ voices]

– an option in every window in the screen to put a window in the foreground (in front of all the windows when the window has no focus)

– icons on the Metro UI, possibility to select the size (for old 32×32 icons maybe just enlarge [there are algoritms to build a correct enlarged image without a pixelized result])

– Zoom tool: cool thing on W7, but a bit slow launching it… Scroll wheel for adjust the zoom could be appreciated

– Recording screen/ screen capture: I'm talking about recording screen, yeah there is Expression, but is a bit *confusing*, a simple tool like Snipping tool for record in .wmp or other compression could be VERY appreciated

What's wrong with the orb? It's one of my favorite versions of the Windows logo (though it's hard to decide between it and the XP version), and it's much better than any of the flat, empty designs that Microsoft is using with Metro. Even worse is that the use of the Windows logo as a loading animation has been replaced with one of the most boring animations I have ever seen (the dots moving around in a circle).

Hi! In Windows 8 will can be useful to have "more desktops", to have a better organization of our files just changing them…..also important is to have a native software to burn musics, videos an isos…..

The most important thing is that the new Windows Task Manager needs a tempature monitoring system and more detailed informatiions about the hardware, expecially for the video card…..please this latest thing of the Task Manager is very important……I saw some improvements that the team did…..perfect! 😀

I really hope that it will be a nice solutions…..I love the Windows logo under in the left……Also please can you do something with Paint?from Vista to 7 there were big changes and I really hope that this will be the same from the 7 to the 8 (for example it will be useful a recognition of the trasparent backgrounds of the images or have the possibility to add that)…..also it will can be useful a Metro app of Paint!Thanks to the teams to have done so much work for Windows

Galera of MS! CONGRATULATIONS Windows 8 is fantastico! Just think you need to take the "Nuances" of the METRO interface to the rest of the system … still seem 2 totally different systems. and this may seem somewhat confusing … It gives the impression that they want to speak the two languages …(don't Speak English)

A very common bug in Windows 7 and Vista, it is when we send delete, move, copy, and a window appears saying "you don't have permission to do this or access denied", even though I the single user, single account and administrator (log in). And even restarting the computer, I don't have access to the file. Often only in "safe mode" may make changes to the files. It would be good, especially in Windows 8 have full permission being the administrator user (root user).

Another critical area of Windows 7 is the registration area "has much record with bug", excess records (when desinstalamos programs are the records), there should be a management tool for Windows, with a Record cleanup tool invalid records.

By default I'd want to have the latest version of a file retained as the original named file – with an older one suitably renamed.

Also, I'm concerned by the new option to not copy/move files that appear to be duplicates based on just the name,size, & timestamp. If the user chooses this option then they're left with those files. Are they made aware that they've not been processed since they may not be identical as you've not got any option to do a more thorough comparison of them (such as a hash, or a full difference)?

For files and folders pinned to Start, please give us the option of customising these so the icon size matches that of other tiles, text is of the same size and in the same position as regular tiles, and we can customise the colour of the background to our liking rather than them all being dull green.

That's great, although it will be odd if Win7 doesn't get the fix too.

"In the beta, you can now easily pin your favorite folders to Start,…"

Where?

"…and take advantage of the rich customization functionality that we built into it to arrange the folders into groups and into any order you want."

That's another one of those "the user is in control" excuses for poor design. In what Start group will the folder-representing tile be placed? The last one? The first one? How about the one the user chooses from *within Explorer*? The phrase "Pin to Start" is meaningless. All tiles exist within a group. There is no such thing as pinning to Start, which does not also involve a group. End-users must have the option to add the link to a particular group. Are you just going to dump the link at the end of all Start groups and expect the user to go find it and then use "the rich customization functionality" to put the link where they really want it? What if the user has already created a group called 'Folders', or 'Favorite Folders'? What group will Win8 pin the link into in that case? One for the AI research group, perhaps?

"Additionally, just as in Windows 7, you can pin shortcuts to executables to Start directly from Windows Explorer, which can be very useful for applications that don’t add themselves to the Start screen by default."

Will the rich customization functionality include an option to not add *any* classic app tiles to Start?

@DanyRodier – "- Icon size on live tiles. — Honestly, I would rather prefer smaller tiles since a lot of those live tiles will be dead tiles. However, I understand those big tiles are Microsoft’s new image… Same problem on my Windows Phone: out of some 80 pinned tiles, only 7 are usefully “live”. All others are simply a waste of space."

Great points Dany. The tiles are too big. Simple as that. Not keen on the shapes, either. In most cases, the icon and text should be inline, not one underneath the other. By 'dead tiles' i presume you mean tiles that do not, or cannot display any useful live content? I think your numbers are about right – one in ten tiles might be useful candidates for live data, but the great majority will not be. Frankly, i think the whole live tile thing is little more than an elaborate solution in search of a problem. Besides, the idea of spreading notifications across the Metro landscape is an odd idea in itself. A user scrolling to a group/tile is not going to be wanting to do this to lookup up-to-date data. They have already decided to open the app, and in that case the data is superfluous. Indeed, it is probably a net negative, because recognizing the tile will be harder if it is mostly text, and changing text at that. I estimate that almost all users will prefer to put data displaying tiles, with at least moderate info utility, into a 'Notifications' group – therefore this group should exist by default. Yes i know – the user is in control <eyes roll>. There is more than a little irony to the notion of users regularly scrolling across the Metro(polis) landscape to look at data on tiles, given the WNS (Windows Push Notification Service) technology is meant to be the epitome of energy efficiency – except that all the theoretical advantage is lost because users are scrolling around looking for the stuff, and in the process, draining their battery more than than all the power saving improvements in Windows 8 combined can make up for.

There is another, important definition of 'dead tiles' worth considering. The pattern of app use on competing platforms is that in the great majority of cases, people download an app, use it for a few days, get bored with it, and never use it again. The use-lifetime for a large majority of 'apps' – as opposed to traditional programs – is around 3-4 days. Windows Store apps will follow the same pattern, unless someone can demonstrate otherwise. It follows that most Start screen tiles at any given moment, will be regarded by the user as more like tombstones to be stepped over – live data and pretty graphics notwithstanding. But there i go again, forgetting that – the user is in control. Tell me someone, is that the same user who is immersed in their fullscreen apps? That is, until they decide to do a bit of Start screen housekeepping, organizing, live data lookup, or make one of those jarring trips to the desktop (and back again)? What is the point of making such a big thing about the claimed immersive Metro style app UX if the *general* experience of using Windows 8 is almost the opposite?

"We love shortcut keys (internally, their usage gets up over 85% of all Explorer commands issued), so we want to help more people discover them." "For the beta release, we’ve added hotkey information to the tooltips of relevant buttons."

I think you could express your love and desire for end-user discovery of keyboard shortcuts a little more than just adding tooltips. A nice start, to be sure, but a 2012 OS release should offer discoverability/educational aids that go well beyond Windows 95 era tooltips. Like, for example, an animated graphic that demonstrates the use of the shortcut, possibly with a voiceover. Plus some hyperlinks to related shortcut demos. Now that would be showing love for shortcut keys. Displaying cryptic key sequences like (Ctrl+Shift+N) is not enough. Telling us that these shortcuts are highly used within Microsoft is all very well, but does nothing to help those who would have little idea what Ctrl+Shift+N means, let alone why they might prefer this method to using the mouse and UI controls.

"As in our copy dialogs, Task Manager, and Metro style experiences, we will be reducing distractions and trusting users to discover functionality on their own, by minimizing the ribbon by default."

A distraction from what? From doing file management? That is the funniest thing i've heard all year. Explorer now exposes less UI related functionality by default than it did in Windows 95! So, is the tree-view also a distraction? If yes, then please hide this by default too. If no, then what makes the ribbon a distraction but not the tree-view? Surely the tree view distracts more than the ribbon does – the ribbon just distracts by displaying useful controls, whereas the tree-view displays multiple hierarchies of those abominations known as folders that users have been burying their files in for the past quarter-century. Though of course the contents pane displays folders too. Maybe you should just rid us of Explorer entirely, and make us rely exclusively on search for finding files? But on the other hand…

"With the beta, we will be making a major change that brings Explorer in line with our design principles for Windows 8."

Hey Ilana, i know one of those design principles: "The user is in control."

The latest reports from Paul Thurrott seem to confirm this rumor that the Start buttion is being removed from Windows 8. What?! This is change for the worse. What reason is there for removing the Start button (and also the Start menu) from Windows 8? Time and time again, evidence has shown that the Start Screen just won't work as well as the Start Menu in certain situations. Metro-style apps are simply a bad idea on real computers. IDC predicted that Windows 8 would fail, remember? It makes no sense that Windows 8 should have this dual Metro/Aero design, like trying to use two comptuers at once. Quite frankly, I see no reason why Windows 8 can't look something like this:

I think MS should be making a whole desktop theme that is Metro so people can get a feel for it. There should be a Metro apps for all the current apps available in desktop mode now that are stock in windows.

because if your going metro, you might as well put effort into Metrofing your own apps so that people will find a reason to use it more than the desktop.

Could please also add support for 4K (2048×1152) video thumbnail in Windows Explorer? In Windows 7 it does not work! Even Windows Media Player 12 makes problems to play the files. would be great if would work on Windows 8!

File name swapping or file location replacement aren't going to be in Windows 8 either?

I still have to get a message saying "There is a file in this location with the same file name. Would you like to…" and they list options like "Copy and replace" or "Copy, but keep both files", etc.

Why can't it give me the option to "Swap file locations" if I'm pasting something with the same file name in a location or "Swap file names between these files" if I paste a file with the same name in the same location as well?

This function would be REALLY helpful if you're using software to

1) Keep a master copy unchanged

2) Change your copy of the master

3) Replace the "Master" with the copied master in the folder you want the program to read from.

4) If a developer error occurs, just "File location swap" your copied Master file with the original Master file to make it stable again

5) You don't need to delete or make a folder to hold the master file and keep track of it while make changes to that file.

This function is really useful! That, and "File name swapping" should be considered for the future of Windows 8

Hi, it’s good to see Microsoft taking the pain of listening and hope it brings a better Windows 8.

The one thing that I wish to have in file management is the extension of bit locker encryption to the level of a file or folder in any drive & not just the drive volumes that is currently available.

I would also like to have an option to just use a password to protect any file or folder with encryption only as an additional option…for encryption simply takes a lot of time. It’s a shame that after all these days Windows a supposedly flexible & all-functional OS doesn’t provide an option to password protect any file/folder and users are forced to use some third party software, which I believe many dislike and dread at.

It’s a serious deficiency for an OS of such a size, and this is a function that should be part of the OS; third party software can only be an additional option.

Also, the password protect option should be manageable through Group policy at both Machine & User level. The administrator should be able to enable or disable the option to password protect or encrypt files/folders, so as that only intended users are given the ability to password protect or encrypt files/folders.

I hope & wish to see this feature in Windows 8… I seriously miss it and believe many others do too.

Full screen immersive app is the future of windows for desktops? You are killing multitasking with this! Swiping from the left to change apps in just a pain for desktops it requires so much time to get to the right app then just selecting it from the taskbar.

Please add the abbility to run metro apps in windows. Metro apps should be in the taskbar too.

For everything else I use pinned programs and Win key + type (which is unchanged in Windows 8).

OK, I can pin Control Panel too (but why should I do it? It appears to be seen if it's as easy / doesn't require more clicks to change settings in Metro, as I haven't used WDP).

Shutdown option is hidden deeply in WDP from what I read, I hope they improved that for WCP.

But that's me, I'm a fairly advanced user. What about millions of average users? I can't imagine the blind panic attacks they would have. I don't think they are proficient enough to know Win key, Ctrl+Esc or much less hovering the mouse in a "hot corner". If you think about it, anything you install "lives" in a Start menu – that's how my parents think at least – and optionally you can have desktop shortcuts. If you don't have Start menu, application basically disappears after you install it (since Desktop apps do not pin themselves automatically to the Start screen).

So, a very bold and rather strange decision. Microsoft better spend some money on advertising to educate the people of what's expecting them as well as include extensive video tutorial with Windows 8.

doping said: "So, a very bold and rather strange decision. Microsoft better spend some money on advertising to educate the people of what's expecting them as well as include extensive video tutorial with Windows 8."

I think 99.9% of current Window users are going to need a week long seminar in Redmond, to figure all this out.

I think Microsoft's mission here was to kill off Windows. Congratulation, mission accomplished.